The New Testament Roots of Christian Zionism

Christian Zionism. Is it an eeevil plot by Jewish Zionists to get US military and diplomatic support? Is it a transient Boomer fad? Or is somehow fundamental to Bible Thumping Christianity and thus core to the American Way?

For those brought up in Traditional Christianity, either of the first two options makes sense. I can relate as I was brought up High Church Episcopalian. As such, Advent was a time for getting ready for Christmas. The Advent wreath was like a Christmas wreath, only it was horizontal with four candles representing four weeks. These four weeks were Christmas shopping season and a time for being extra good so Santa Claus would be generous. Oh, and it was also time for rehearsing for Christmas pageants and further decorating home and church buildings.

As I got older my mind was less focused on new toys and I was better able to listen to the messages from the pulpit. Advent remained a season for getting ready for Christmas, but every year the minister would point out that it is also the season for anticipating Christ’s return. There may have been entire sermons on the subject, but they must have been bland, as none of them got stored in my long term memory. And it takes real talent to make Christ’s return into a bland subject, given the vivid and frightening imagery found in the Bible on the subject.

The older denominations have been through multiple false alarms regarding Jesus’ return. They have learned to downplay the subject.

However, while I was an Episcopalian growing up, I did get exposed to other flavors of Christianity. Even over a half century ago, before the Episcopal Church went Rainbow, congregations were losing families with children to denominations with more children. So to attend vacation Bible school required visiting another church, usually the Methodists, but one year I attended the Baptists’ vacation Bible school. This turned out to be quite an eye-opening experience, as an evangelist was in town for the first time in ages.

The Bible school was the usual arts and crafts time, but we also rehearsed a song for the service that was to follow the week long school. And that song was about a countdown to Jesus returning. The end times were not an afterthought for the Southern Baptists. As for the evangelist, he was a young adult -- likely an early Boomer -- who seemed a swell guy. He’d get out his guitar and play us a song. Then he’d talk to us a bit about the song we were rehearsing. Not what I was used to, but not that weird.

Then came the night of the service. The church was utterly packed. All age groups were in attendance; this was not some Campus Crusade Boomer thingy. The various Bible School classes did their little performances -- and then the evangelist took the stage. He wasn’t the nice guy from the week before. He morphed into something terrifying. He roared that you either need to come up and be SAVED or you were doomed. It was one of the scariest experiences of my childhood. Fortunately, the parents of my friend with whom I had attended Bible School realized my confusion and took me out.

Lesson: Christian denominations can vary wildly in worship style -- as well as attitude towards Jesus’ return. The second lesson is that fascination with the End Times is a Southern Baptist thing, not a Boomer thing. And the Southern Baptists are not alone. America has been hatching End Times obsessed denominations since before the modern Jewish Zionist movement began.

Fads come and go. New denominations rise and fade. But the Bible remains, and those who look at the Bible with fresh eyes will continue to be affected. So let’s go to the highest authority of them all: Jesus. With the possible exception of The Rogue Roman, most Christians would agree that Jesus outranks even the current Pope. So let’s take a close look at what Jesus had to say about his own return. For this I turn to Matthew chapter 24. (Variations on this passage can be found in Mark 13 and Luke 21. This message was not for just the Jewish Christians.)

Mat 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

Mat 24:2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

Well, the actual Temple is definitely long gone. But a retaining wall that kept the Temple Mount from sliding down still remains, and is now the Wailing Wall.

Or does it? Ernest L. Martin wrote a lengthy book making the case that the Wailing Wall is part of the old Roman fortress, which the Romans did not destroy for obvious reasons. The Dome of the Rock may well be sitting on the ground where Jesus was tortured by Roman soldiers. Whether this constitutes holy ground or accursed ground is an exercise I leave to the reader. The key takeaway is that the Jews can rebuild their Temple without destroying a Muslim holy place.

So if you run into any practicing Jews, do your part for peace in the Middle East and point out the location error.

Now let’s inch forward in the prophecy:

Mat 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

The subject of the conversation has shifted, as has the location of the conversation. Jesus was talking about the destruction of Herod’s Temple while still in the vicinity of the Temple. The conversation about Jesus’ return takes place while Jesus is seated on the Mount of Olives. There is a time gap between verse 2 and 3, as well as a significant change in subject.

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Pay special note to verse 5. Jesus prophesied that Christian preachers would be the ones doing the deceiving. Yes, it is possible to read “I am Christ” to mean someone claiming to be the Second Coming of Christ, but the previous “shall come in my name” clearly points to the other interpretation: that the deceiver is someone who is proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah.

In other words, not necessarily bad people. Just wrong. For those who wish to criticize Christian Zionism, passage above can be useful. But before going that route, keep reading. Prophetically interesting things are happening.

Mat 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Mat 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

Mat 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Mat 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.

Mat 24:10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

Mat 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Mat 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

Jesus unambiguously said here that he is not coming back for quite some time. The gospel of the kingdom has to preached to all the nations of the world first. This is enough time for plenty of wars, persecutions, and natural disasters to occur.

Mat 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Mat 24:16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Mat 24:17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

Mat 24:18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

Mat 24:19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

Mat 24:20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

Mat 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

Mat 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

Mat 24:23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Mat 24:25 Behold, I have told you before.

Mat 24:26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

Mat 24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Mat 24:28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

Here Jesus talked about the signs which foretell his actual coming. It is here he talked about false messiahs and people claiming to be Jesus. And Jesus describes the manner of his coming: like lightning coming out of the East. It will be unambiguous and very public.

Note also that the Sabbath is still in effect at this time far in the future — long after Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus did not do away with the Sabbath, he just dialed back the nit picking.

Let’s zoom in on a very specific sign: The Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.

For those who struggle with Biblical prophecy, Daniel is a good place to start. While his prophecies are metaphorical, they are pretty easy to interpret, far easier than Isaiah, and not grueling like Jeremiah. Also, many of Daniel’s prophecies have already come to pass. Atheist scholars would claim that those prophecies had been written in after the fact, but it would be extremely had to make that claim for all of Daniel’s prophecies. For starters, Judea was a hotbed of expectations for a messiah because Daniel predicted a messiah around the time of Jesus. Furthermore, Daniel not only predicted the rise of the Roman Empire, he predicted that it would split in two and linger long after falling. Europe has the Vatican taking on some of the role of the Western Roman Empire. We also had the Holy Roman Empire for some time. The German ruler during World War I went under the title of Kaisar -- which is the proper pronunciation of Caesar. Meanwhile the Russian Czars claimed to be the heirs to the Eastern Roman Empire (Czar is Russian for Caesar.). Vladimir Putin is currently following August Caesar’s strategy for staying in power. Augustus never claimed the kingship. Instead, he kept switching titles, just as Putin today switches between president and prime minister.

Now let us turn to the prophecies Jesus was referring to:

Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Dan 9:25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

Dan 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Daniel is referring to a time when Jerusalem is restored and a temple rebuilt. There will be a time of abominations when the sacrifices are brought to a halt.

Dan 12:8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?

Dan 12:9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

Dan 12:10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

Dan 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

Dan 12:12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

Dan 12:13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.

Again, the abomination refers to a time of sacrifices being brought to a halt. Note the end of this passage: Daniel is to rest, and then at the end of days, he is to receive what he has been allotted. This is a reference to the Resurrection, one of the more explicit references in the Old Testament.

Jesus said he isn’t coming back until the Abomination of Desolation described in Daniel happens. The Abomination of Desolation requires a rebuilt Temple complete with animal sacrifices. A new Temple requires Jews, real Jews, not Phoenicians or the Synagogue of Satan. In particular, it requires descendants of Aaron. And yes, the Jews have been keeping track. Look up the surname Cohen. If you think God is going to let anyone else build a Temple, you need to read the Old Testament histories. Even David was not allowed to build a Temple.

The new Christian denominations which took a fresh read of the Bible understand all this. The traditional denominations suppress this information. They have excuse: false alarms about Jesus returning have disrupted the Christian world repeatedly. But maybe it’s time for the truth to get out.

This may be yet another false alarm, but the founding of the state of Israel is prophetically very, very interesting. There was no way that the Temple could be rebuilt while Muslims had rule over the area. And the Jews still need to secure more control of Jerusalem before work can begin on a new Temple. And the new Temple has to be in use for a while before the Abomination of Desolation. So even if it the beginning of the Big One, we have a while yet before Jesus returns.

For those who think the formation of Israel was a Jewish plot to solicit Christian support, note that the original Zionists wanted to create a secular Jewish state. The flag of Israel is a six pointed star instead of a menorah for that reason. Christian Zionists are being a bunch of buttinskies.

For those who think all the real Jews became Christians long ago, ask yourselves: how is Jesus to return? Is Jesus going to falsify his own prophecy and return without the Abomination of Desolation happening first? Is a future Pope going to declare we should have a Temple and as honorary descendants of Abraham, Christians should do the job? Or are you denying that the Resurrection will ever happen?

The Jews still have a role to play. The remaining question is whether Christians should assist. Try this scripture:

Gen 12:1 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:

Gen 12:2 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:

Gen 12:3 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.

As a matter of national defense, I support the defense of Israel. This does not mean tolerating Mossad interference in American governance. I don’t tolerate British interference either (Steele dossier). Nor does this mean supporting every Israeli policy. But those who want to go back to monarchy and/or the feudal system and hate on Christian Zionists need to follow Vox Day’s lead and self-deport to the Old Country.

I’m an American reactionary.

Mat 24:32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

Mat 24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

The word “generation” in verse 24 is confusing. Using the modern meaning of generation contradicts what Jesus said leading up to this passage. The New American Standard translation suggests “race” as an alternative. George Lamsa’s translation of the Peshitta uses “race.”

Mat 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Mat 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

Mat 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Mat 24:40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Mat 24:41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Mat 24:42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

Mat 24:43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

Mat 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

We have mention of the Rapture. Many of those who write on the end times believe that gentile Christians will be taken out of the picture so that the Jews will have one last opportunity to do their jobs. i believe this to be in error as I will demonstrate shortly. As such, while I do recommend reading some of the literature out there to catch points that I miss here, use that literature as pointers to relevant scripture, not as definitive takes.

I fear that Christians will live through the tribulations. Note this earlier passage:

Mat 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

Mat 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Mat 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Jesus is going to gather his elect after the tribulation.

Paul echoes this:

1Th 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

1Th 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

1Th 4:15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1Th 4:18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Verse 4:17 refers to the Rapture, but notice how this happens after Jesus descends down to the clouds with a shout and a trumpet blast and the dead in Christ have already awoken.

While Christ’s return is an event to look forward to, the lead up is not going to be fun, and, alas, gentile Christians will partake in the unpleasant experience. At some point Mormon style survival prep might be in order.

We have time. The Temple hasn’t been built, and it is going to operate a while before things get truly ugly. Indeed, this may yet be another false alarm. The Jews may get run out of Canaan yet again before they get to build a Temple. But if so, guess where they will end up: The United States.

So either way, cool it with the Jew hating. Not only is it terrible theology, it is moronic politics.