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In 1986 I had the privilege, honor, and blessing of visiting Israel. I have traveled quite a bit in my life but never did I have a spiritual experience like the one I had in Israel. After having read the Bible my heart’s desire was to see the Holy Land and I was not disappointed! I hope to be able to take my wife there one day.    

As a Christian I fully support the Jew’s right to the land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael as they call it). I do not base this support on political or social causes nor on any biblical end-time prophecies. I base this belief on the fact that God, who created the world, specifically gave this land to the Jews. The Bible, which was written ten centuries before Islam ever came into existence, states in several places God’s promise to give the land of Israel to the Jews. The following section of scripture passages will illustrate this truth.    

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It started with God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis:    

• Genesis 12:1-7 – 1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” 4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. 6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. 7 And the LORD appeared unto Abraham and said, “Unto your descendants will I give this land.”

• Genesis 13:14-15 – And the LORD said unto Abraham, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are standing, north, south, east, and west. For the land which you see, to you will I give it and to your descendants forever.”

• Genesis 17:1-8 – And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

God’s promise to give Abraham and his descendants the land of Israel is continued through Abraham’s son, Isaac. Abraham also had another son, Ishmael, who is the father of the Arab nations. But you will see that God’s promise concerning the land of Israel is to be fulfilled through Isaac. Abraham confirms this just before he dies when he gives all of his possessions to Isaac and not Ishmael:    

• Genesis 17:19-21 – And God said to Abraham “Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac.”

• Genesis 25:5, 7-9 – “And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac…And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years. Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre.”

• Genesis 26:1-5 – And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, “Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; Because that Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

There was no question in Abraham’s mind that Isaac was to be the heir through whom God would fulfill His covenants. God further delineates the family line of succession from Abraham to Isaac to Isaac’s son, Jacob:    

• Genesis 25:21-22a, 24-26 – “And Isaac entreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her…And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bore them.”

• Genesis 28:10-16 – And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he came upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon you lie, to you will I give it, and to your seed; And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with you, and will keep you in all places where you go, and will bring you again into this land; for I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken to you of.” And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.”

God tells Jacob that He will fulfill the covenants He made with his fathers through his descendants. Therefore, the promise of the land of Israel will go through Isaac’s son Jacob instead of his other son Esau. God also reaffirms the Messianic promise that He will bless the nations of the earth through Jacob’s descendants. A little while after this experience, God again visits Jacob and changes his name:    

• Genesis 32:27-28 – “And he said unto him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince have you power with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

This is the first time in the Bible that the word “Israel” is used. Later, it becomes synonymous with the name of the land where Jacob’s descendants dwell. Jacob ends up having thirteen children, twelve sons and one daughter. He names one of his sons “Judah”. It is from this word that the appellation “Jew” derives and eventually is applied to all the descendants of Jacob’s children.    

The parts of these covenants that pertain to the Jews’ right to the land of Israel were never abrogated in the New Testament. There were times when God removed the Jews from the land as a punishment for their rebellion but He never stated that He would take the land away from them permanently. His word makes it clear that He alone determines who lives in the land. He tells Moses to warn the Israelites that if they obey Him they will be blessed in the land of Israel. However, if they disobey Him, He will remove them from the land:    

• Deuteronomy 28:1-3,63-65 – “1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: 2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. 3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field…63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. 64 And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. 65 And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.”

Notice in this passage that it is the LORD who scatters the Jews from the land. Later in Israel’s history, God removed the Jews from the land for their disobedience. He used the Babylonian Empire to perform His judgment. However, He tells them that He will return them to the land after seventy years:    

• Jeremiah 29:4,10-11 – “4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon…10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

Here again God states that He is the one who caused the Jews to be carried away to Babylon and He will be the one to cause them to return to Israel. Jesus told the Jews that their Temple would be destroyed and their house left desolate. In 70 A.D. the Romans did destroy the Temple and in 135 A.D. they put down a Jewish uprising and dispersed the Jews throughout the Roman Empire. However, in the book of the prophet Amos God promised that one day He would bring the Jews back to the land forever:    

• Amos 9:13-15 – “13 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. 14 And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. 15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.”

God states that He is always watching Israel:    

• Deuteronomy 11:11-12 – “11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: 12 A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.”

Since God emphasizes throughout His word that He is always interested in what is going on in the land of Israel and that He determines when the Jews live in the land, I have to believe that on May 14, 1948 God fulfilled His promise to bring the Jews back to the land forever. They were dispersed throughout the world for 1800 years yet they maintained their Jewish identity. One would have to be blind not to see the hand of God in the rebirth of the modern state of Israel.    

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I have a book titled “Palestine” that was printed in the 1920′s. It is a photo album of various places around Israel. The images show “Palestine” to be a desolate wasteland of barren, rock-strewn fields and a treeless countryside. When I visited Israel, 38 years after the Jews created their state, I saw some of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen. The Jews had reclaimed the land and turned it into a green, lush, fruitful country.    

That the Jews have had a presence in Israel for over 30 centuries is a fact of archaeology. The archaeological excavations in Israel have confirmed Jewish habitation in the land dating back to at least 1000 B.C. To deny this, as many Arab and non-Arab people do, is to ignore the science of archaeology.    

It is interesting that the Jewish/Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem hundreds of times yet the Islamic Quran does not mention it even once.    

There are multitudes of Christians who support the right of the Jews to dwell in the land of Israel. I believe that the day America turns its back on the Jewish state of Israel will be the day that God turns His back on America.    

Finally, let me say that my support for the Jews’ Biblical right to the land of Israel does not include the endorsement of the heretical doctrine of the Two or Dual Covenant teaching to which some Christian organizations subscribe.

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As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, in 1986 I took a trip to Israel. Here is a link to information about that trip and my photo album from it: 

My 1986 Trip to Israel

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Knox Theological Seminary has posted an open letter on their web site to evangelical Christians who support the Jews’ right to the land of Israel. Their position is from a teaching that is known as Replacement Theology which states that Christians have replaced the Jews as God’s people and therefore have obtained all the promises that God gave to the Jews in the Old Testament. This open letter can be found at An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties: The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the Gospel.

When Christians resort to spiritualizing the plain reading of God’s word then it is incumbent on Bible-literalists to speak out and correct the error of their teaching (James 5:19-20). I wish to address the belief that since the majority of Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah all covenant relationships were dissolved between God and the Jews. What does God’s word say about this?

We will start with what is known as the Abrahamic Covenant. This is God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis that the physical land of Israel would be given to Abraham and his descendants.

• Genesis 12:7 – And the LORD appeared unto Abraham and said, “Unto your descendants will I give this land.”
• Genesis 13:14-15 – And the LORD said unto Abraham, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are standing, north, south, east, and west. For the land which you see, to you will I give it and to your descendants forever.”

When you or I speak of our ancestors or our descendants we are speaking of physical human beings related to us. We are not speaking about our relatives in a spiritual sense. Therefore the plain reading of this text declares that God will give the land of Israel forever to the physical descendants of Abraham. As we will see the physical descendants of Abraham to whom this promise was made are the Jews.

God didn’t just promise the land to Abraham only but He also made the same promise to Abraham’s son Isaac.

Here God renews His everlasting covenant with Abraham but God also makes an everlasting covenant with Isaac, Abraham’s son. There are two interesting observations here. The first is that God has shown in this verse that the covenant would descend physically to Isaac. The second is that God also established the covenant not just with Abraham but also with Isaac and thereby Isaac’s descendants who are the Jews.

This is the plain reading of the scriptures pertaining to the Abrahamic Covenant. Now I will respond to the various claims made by Knox Theological Seminary (KTS) in their open letter. I will write my responses under the heading of the Roman numerals as they correspond to those Roman numerals in the KTS open letter.

I. – I agree completely with KTS that salvation is an undeserved, unearned gift of God through the sacrificial death of the Jesus the Messiah.

II. – I agree completely with KTS that All human beings are sinners and under the God’s judgment of death. However, neither I nor the Bible agree with KTS that apart from Christ there is no special divine favor upon any member of any ethnic group; nor is there any divine promise of an earthly land or a heavenly inheritance to anyone, whether Jew or Gentile.

In verse 27 God says that He has a covenant with the unbelieving Jews to save them after the fullness of the Gentiles has been fulfilled. Verse 28 states clearly that even though the Jews are enemies of the gospel they are beloved because of their patriarchal ancestors. Finally verse 29 states that the gifts of God are irrevocable therefore God’s gift of the land to the Jews is irrevocable.

III. – I agree completely with KTS that God, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, has made only one way of salvation. That way is through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ alone.

IV. – I agree with KTS that Jesus is fully man and fully God who took away the sin of the world through His sacrificial death. I also agree that Jesus’ sacrifice fulfilled the sacrifices that God ordained the Jews to offer in the Old Testament. I also agree that all who would worship God must come through Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth. However, neither I nor the Bible NOR THE APOSTLE PAUL agrees with KTS that the death of Jesus eternally ended the sacrifices of the Jewish temple. That Jewish believers could still offer sacrifices at the Jewish Temple, possibly as a memorial sacrifice is evidenced by the following section of scripture.

Here we see that the apostle Paul, who had been saved for many years, still entered the Jewish Temple and made a sacrifice long after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

V. – I completely agree with KTS that as many as receive Christ alone through faith alone, both Jews and Gentiles alike, God gives to them eternal life.

VI. – I agree with KTS that believers in Jesus Christ are of the seed of Abraham. In the case of Gentile believers this of course pertains to a spiritual seed since we are not physically a descendant of Abraham unless of course a Gentile believer is a physical descendant of Ishmael and therefore a physical descendant of his father, Abraham. However, the Abrahamic covenant was not given through Ishmael but through Isaac and therefore the Jews. You will not find the phrase the “church of Israel” in the Old Testament. The Gospel writer Luke (most likely a Gentile) wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to Theophilus and used the Greek word “ekklesia” of Israel which various translations render as church, congregation, assembly, etc. However, I do not agree that the Jews cannot participate in the Abrahamic Covenant. As stated above, Romans 11:27-29 shows that the current unbelief of the Jews does not nullify their participation in the covenants God made with them.

VII. – I completely agree with KTS that Jesus was referring to His body as a Temple. But the verse KTS quotes illustrates that Jesus was not talking about the physical temple of God: John 2:19-21, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” If as the KTS believes, Jesus is the only temple of God, then how is the “man of lawlessness” that the apostle Paul speaks about in II Thessalonians 2:1-4 going to enter into Jesus and declare himself God?

The plain reading of Paul’s writing here shows clearly that he expected there to be a physical temple built before the time of the second coming of Jesus. Since KTS says that Christians have no need of a physical temple then it has to be the Jews who build this “third” Temple for the man of lawlessness to enter into. For the Jews to fulfill this prophecy of Paul’s they have to be in the land of Israel and in control of the Temple Mount.

VIII. – I agree with KTS that the apostle Peter spoke about the creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth. But to extrapolate from this that since Peter didn’t mention the restoration of the kingdom of Israel there is not going to be a future kingdom of Israel is in error. As a matter of fact, the scripture that KTS also quotes in this section Acts 1:6-7, “Therefore, when [the disciples] had come together, they asked [Jesus], saying, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ And he said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority.’” shows that the disciples expected there to be a restoration of the kingdom of Israel. Jesus did not correct them and say “Where did you get that teaching from?” He simply stated that it was not for the disciples to know when the restoration of the kingdom of Israel was going to take place.

IX. – Neither the Bible nor I agree with the KTS position that the Bible does not declare that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews. If as the KTS states in this section, the promises of the land were fulfilled under Joshua’s reign then that means that there are no further claims to the land available. Therefore the land of Israel belongs to Joshua and the Jews and no other ethnic group after them had or has a right to the land. Amos 9:14-15 agrees with this assessment: “I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.” The Jewish disciples never claimed that the land of Israel belonged to Christians. Therefore the early Christians cannot be the ones the Bible speaks about being scattered across the earth and thereby be the ones regathered to the land of Israel. When the Bible speaks of God bringing the captivity of Israel back to the land He can only be speaking about the physical Jews.

X. – I completely agree with the KTS that bad theology led to the crusades which led to tragic cruelty against both Moslems and Jews. But the bad Christian theology that was the impetus for the crusades is the one being espoused by KTS and Replacement Theology. This theology states that the land of Israel belongs not to the Jews but to the spiritual heirs of the Abrahamic covenant, the Christians. Therefore the crusaders thought that they had a mandate from God to take over the land of Israel as the heirs of the Abrahamic Covenant. If anyone from KTS reads this open letter I hope they will be more restrained in the future about assigning blood-guiltiness to other Christians. That’s a dangerous implication to lay on God’s children and I cannot believe that He is pleased with such terminology being used against them.

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The apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote the following section of scriptures in Romans 13:1-2, “Let every soul be subject unto the governing powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” If, as Paul states here, God sets up the governments then we have to believe that God ordained the Jews’ modern return to the land of Israel. In Ezekiel chapter 37 God speaks of the restoration of the Jews to the land of Israel as taking place in stages.

We can see from these scriptures that the Jews start out as dry, dusty bones but end up as spirit-filled human beings at the end. Just because modern-day Israel is a secular nation at this time does not mean that at Jesus’ second coming they will not be spirit-filled believers. For Zechariah 12: 9-10 declares, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” Since Jesus is returning to the land of Israel at His second coming the unbelieving Jews will have to already be in the land to see Him.

I will continue my support for the Jews’ right to the land of Israel as promised to them by God in His word who created the land of Israel, the whole earth, and the Universe.