Jesus and the Land (Gary Burge)

Like most of us, in October 2023 I was shocked by both the Palestinian assault on Israel and the violent Israeli response. The issues are tangled and complex. But what about the Bible? Do the scriptures shed any light on the conflict—and on who rightfully owns the land?

In Nov 2023 I attended a session of the Society of Biblical Literature on the Israel / Palestine land controversy. Four presenters held differing positions vis-a-vis the political and theological issues surrounding the Holy Land. (What, if anything, does the Bible say about the return of the Jews to their historic homeland in Palestine? Do 20th- or 21st-century events in the Middle East fulfill OT prophecy? In other words, is the "Holy Land" still "holy"? There is a spectrum of opinion on such matters.)

Christian Zionists and Jews who hold to Holy Land territoriality consider holy not only the land, but (even more so) the city of Jerusalem, and still holier the Temple. (Think concentric circles, with increasing holiness as one approaches the center.) But if Gary Burge is right, this Old Testament paradigm is no longer valid. In the spirit of full disclosure, I agreed with Burge even before he spoke, as this is a topic I've devoted a lot of time to in study / writing. Still, he was the only speaker who seemed to grasp the big picture, tackle the relevant scriptures, and offer reasons that were both measured and sensible. His line of thought increased my conviction and led to this article.

In this article I highlight numerous insights in Gary M. Burge's invaluable work, Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to “Holy Land” Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010).

THE DEBATE
Zionism is a movement opposed to the Bible, led (primarily) by atheists, and rejected by Orthodox Jewish rabbis.

“… Christian Zionism is best understood as political action, informed by specifically Christian commitments, to promote or preserve Jewish control over the geographic area now containing Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.” Robert O. Smith, “Christian Zionism: It Challenges our Lutheran Commitments,” The Lutheran 164 (June 2009), quoted by Burge [115]. Apparently many of my brothers and sisters are Christian Zionists—even if they are unaware of that term.

The numbers in brackets at the end of each bulleted section are page numbers in the book.

“… We must be clear. Just as Judaism and Christianity debated the merits of the land in their early centuries within their own ranks, the same is true today. Not all Jews have a territorial theology. Nor do all Christians. However, just as in the first century, these ancient debates have arisen again. In modern Israel the settler movement represents this well. And among Christians, a movement called Christian Zionism has developed these views for the masses” [111].

Order Jesus and the Land.

FAVORITE NOTES AND QUOTES
Following are many of the sentences I highlighted while reading this intriguing book, with a minimum of commentary on my part.

The Teaching of Jesus

• Jesus’ central message was “the kingdom of God. While he announced the kingdom’s arrival within the land, in no manner is the kingdom linked to the territorial aspirations of Judaism” [33].
• A common OT metaphor is vineyard. Israel is God’s vineyard (Isa 5). But she is also a vine, and can be transplanted (Ps 80:7-13; Isa 27:2-6; Jer 2:21; 5:10: 12:11-12; etc). Thus the foundation is laid for Jesus to speak of his followers (the church) as part of the vine. “John 15 is in fact a careful critique of the territorial religion of Judaism… In a word, Jesus spiritualizes the land” [56]. The people are the vineyard in the land—the people more than the location. 
• John’s gospel has a strong replacement motif: water by wine, the Temple by Jesus, Passover by “bread from heaven,” etc. And so it is not surprising if the land is replacement by something better [46ff].
• On John 1:14, where the Word "tabernacles" among us: “John makes a stunning assertion with regard to this Temple: Jesus has replaced it” [50].
• To the shock and dismay of his disciples, Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple (Mark 13; Matt 24; Luke 21). “The call from the popular territorial theologies was for the recovery of the Temple, not its destruction. Jesus is at odds with the ‘land theologies’ of his day” [33].
• Re: Mark 13:14: Jesus told his followers to flee, not to fight for the Holy Land. Divine life is located in Jesus, not in any geographical territory. “[First-century Christians] felt no need to live in the land… Not surprisingly, Christians refused to fight for the land in the great war of AD 66-70. They fled, according to Eusebius, to the great Decapolis city of Pella on the east side of the Jordan river… (Ecclesiastical History, 5). Nor did Christians fight for the land in the Bar Kokhba rebellion of AD 132-5. The vineyard they loved was centered on Jesus and his life and this could be gained in any country” [57].
• “In John 1.51 [referring to Bethel, Gen 28], Jesus is linked to this story. If the location of Jacob’s sleep was the locus of God’s descent into the world—if this also came to be known as ‘God’s House,’ then it is clear that Jesus subsumes these to himself. He is the ‘gateway to heaven’ as well as ‘the house of God.’ So much is clear among most commentators. But the content of the vision is often missed. The purpose of the dream to Jacob is to reaffirm God’s promise of the land to him and his descendants. ‘The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring’ (28.13). And yet, if Jesus now replaces Jacob in the dream account of Genesis, Jesus is the new Bethel. Moreover, Jesus is now the recipient of the promise of Holy Land held by Jacob” [49].
• “The withdrawal of divine light, leaving Jerusalem in darkness, is the final judgment of Jesus (3.19-21; 11.9-10; 12.46)… As Davies concludes, ‘In 8.59 we find the implication that for John, “I AM” [or God] has departed the Temple, that “holy space” is no longer the abode of the Divine Presence. The Shekinah is no longer there but is now found wherever Christ is’” [52].
• “… The disciples are directed away from Jerusalem’s Temple to the many rooms found in God’s house. These ‘rooms’ are in reality found not within the walls of an earthly temple, but instead will be found when Christ indwells each believer (14.23)” [52].
• Burge agrees with Brueggemann: “Those who possess the most and who have the most to lose by a revision of Jewish territorialism resist Jesus forcefully. Jesus is the great ‘rearranger’ of the land. And his opponents know it” [41].

Paul's Teaching

• “Paul’s bold treatment of the law, Jerusalem and even the Temple all point to an implicit rejection of Jewish territoriality” [90].
• Burge agrees with theologian Peter Walker that “for Paul… Jerusalem and its Temple are places that enjoy historic respect but cannot claim a universal or lasting theological significance” [74].
• Paul cites OT texts reserved for physical Israel and applies them to Christians living outside Judea (e.g. 1 Cor 3.16-17; 2 Cor 6.16) [75].
• “Romans 4.13 is the only place where the apostle refers explicitly to the promises for the land given to Abraham and in this case Paul fails to refer to Judea. Paul writes that the promise to Abraham indicates that the patriarch would inherit the world (Gk kosmos). The universalizing intent of Paul has now shifted from the Gentiles to the domain of Gentile life. In Genesis Abraham was to inherit the Holy Land. In Romans 4.13, his claim is on the world” [85].
• “Remarkably Ephesians 6.2 anchors its moral charge to the Old Testament command [Exodus 6.12] and applies the promise to Christian parents. ‘Honor your father and your mother – this is the first commandment with a promise – that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the land (Gk epi tēs gēs).’ The Old Testament link is clearly to the Land of Promise in Judea and yet here this letter can refer the promise to Ephesian Gentiles and their life in their land… The notion of ‘land’ has here expanded and now embraces a wider theological geography” [93].
• “Christian theology has no room for ‘holy places’ outside of the Holy One who is Christ. And above all, Paul would have seen as aberrant any Christian territorialism wed to first-century politics. A religiously fueled regional nationalism did arise in the first century in Judaism and it eventually delivered Jerusalem to the Roman armies” [94].

The Teaching of Hebrews

• “Hebrews refers to ‘the city’ four times, and in each case, the reference is to a heavenly city (11.10, 16; 12.22; 13.14). Such a city was even the aspiration of Abraham, who sought a ‘city that has no foundations, whose architect and builder is God’ (11.10)… Therefore by relocating the true Jerusalem, Hebrews undercuts any need for literal pilgrimage to Judea” [98].
• “It is specious to suggest that when Hebrews says ‘Abraham did not receive the land’ it is referring to Abraham’s failure to completely control the land in settlement. He lived alongside the Canaanites but nevertheless knew that this land was his by divine promise. Nevertheless, Hebrews intimates that the deeper meaning of the promise to Abraham did not have to do with the territory between Shechem and Beersheba. This is because throughout his life of wandering his eye had been set on a different city – a different land – that was to be built by God (11.10). For Hebrews the land is simply a foretaste, a metaphor perhaps, of a more profound location with God. If this is true, Hebrews can reach the following deduction: Abraham continued to be a stranger and alien on the earth (or in the land?) despite his life in the Land of Promise (11.13). ‘Alien’ (Gk. parepidēmos) is the very term Peter uses for his Christian audience in the Diaspora [1 Pet 1.1]. [Diaspora means dispersion, i.e. those Jews living outside the borders of Israel.] In a word, Abraham has joined the ranks of the alien Christians in Hebrews’ worldview. Abraham walked in the land as if it were a Diaspora” [100].
• “Ironically even though Abraham stood in Shechem, Bethel, and Hebron, Hebrews can say that the patriarch only saw the land and greeted it from afar (11.13). How can this be true? Because Abraham sought something greater: a homeland (11.13, Gk patris)” [100].
• “Throughout the summary of the Moses-Joshua story in Hebrews 3—4, “rest” (Gk katapausis) occurs eight times, without any reference to the land. This is the new pilgrimage of the people of God and it is modeled by the pilgrimage of the Old Testament Israel” [101-102].
• “In [Heb] 13.20 God does not ‘raise up’ Christ from the dead: God “leads up” (Gk anagagōn) Christ using the same language of Moses’ ‘leading up’ Israel out of Egypt (Exod. 33.15; Num 14.13). Just like Moses, Jesus is another shepherd (13.20b) who now is taking his people to a new land, a heavenly land, a ‘better country’ (11.16)” [102].

The Teaching of the Apocalypse

• In the book of Revelation, “John’s vision concerns God’s resolution for the entire world and never Judea. The term ‘land’ occurs in this book a remarkable 82 times (one third of all New Testament occurrences) and in each case it points to the earth and never to the Holy Land” [104-105]. 
• Not only does Revelation not depict the redeemed ultimately dwelling in geographical Israel; it also places no hope in geopolitics at all. “No political, religious, or economic system will ultimately cure the world of its ills. The violent carry the world where they will. The better country will not be built by its occupants. No military campaign to rid the world of darkness and no ideology to reorganize the world will bring the relief God’s people seek. Such resolution, such final resolution, will only be found when God himself declares his judgment on human history, redeems those whose hearts seek his mercy, and at last brings his kingdom to bear on the kingdoms of this world with all its power and glory” [108].

Early Christian Teaching

• “At no point do the earliest Christians view the Holy Land as a locus of divine activity to which the people of the Roman empire must be drawn. They do not promote the Holy Land either for the Jew or for the Christian as a vital aspect of faith. No Diaspora Jew or pagan Roman is converted and then reminded of the importance of the Holy Land. The early Christians possessed no territorial theology. Early Christian preaching is utterly uninterested in a Jewish eschatology devoted to the restoration of the land. The kingdom of Christ began in Judea and is historically anchored there but it is not tethered to a political realization of that kingdom in the Holy Land. Echoing the message of the Gospels, the praxis of the Church betrays its theological commitments: Christians will find in Christ what Judaism had sought in the land” [59].
• In fact, in the first century many Jews were already moving away from a territorial theology of land. “Judaism’s ‘Land Theology’ had been entirely redefined [by Josephus, Philo, and other Jewish thinkers and writers]. And it would be a redefinition that would deeply influence the formation of Christian thinking in the New Testament” [24].
• “The early Christians under Paul’s leadership – or a host of others that followed them – would have been astonished if they came upon men and women who promoted a Christian variation of Jewish territorialism. There is no evidence either within the Hellenistic mission of the Church or within the communities growing up around Judea that theological obligations required a political commitment to Jerusalem or the land… There was no room for a view that elevated Judea’s political interests above all others are that looked on Judea as bearing unique spiritual or theological importance” [71].
• “For a Christian to return to a Jewish territoriality is to deny fundamentally what has transpired in the incarnation. It is to deflect appropriate devotion to the new place where God has appeared in residence, namely, in his Son. This explains why the New Testament applies to the person of Christ religious language formerly devoted to the Holy Land or the Temple. He is the new spatiality, the new locale where God may be met” [129-130].

No to Zionism

• “In 1891 George Adam Smith wrote his popular book The Historical Geography of the Holy Land and there portrayed an empty biblical land awaiting the return of Judaism. Such publications resonated with a growing evangelical interest in Palestine and the Bible and they fueled the perception that something remarkable, something biblical might be fulfilled should Judaism return. This interest in the Bible was given a solid footing among early evangelists in Britain and the USA. I think particularly of William Blackstone (1841-1935), who was a Chicago evangelist and student of Dwight Moody. In 1878 he published Christ is Coming, which was America’s first best-seller that looked at the return of the Jews to the Holy Land and linked it to the Second Coming of Christ. The book went through three editions and was translated into 42 languages. In 1890 Blackstone was visiting Jewish settlements in the Holy Land and organizing prophecy conferences in Chicago to restore Jews to Palestine. It is a short step from Blackstone to the views presented by today’s Christian Zionists. Speakers and writers such as the late Jerry Falwell, Hal Lindsey, Mike Evans, Jan van der Hoeven, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Jack Hayford, Gary Bauer, John Hagee, James Kennedy, and Kay Arthur promote a parallel view of the Middle East. They write books, promote conferences, sponsor websites, and lead large trips to Israel. They are anxious to see the Jewish people re-established in their sacred land. And they see this as a marker that we are living in a terminal generation that will witness the end of time and Christ’s return” (116).
• Also giving the lie to Zionism, in the OT Yahweh would allow the Jews to occupy his land only as long as they practiced justice. “There is a surprising disregard for the prophets’ ethical exhortations about the quality of Israel’s national life, particularly its treatment of the ‘aliens and sojourners’ who live among them” (121). Surely Israel's overall treatment of Palestinians is a blatant contradiction to the prophetic mandate to love the alien. This is not to take sides. As a peace activist and friend of mine (and a Palestinian himself) explains, "If you're pro-Israel you're not for peace. If you're pro-Palestine you're not for peace." (Well put!) Under the old covenant the land belonged to God, not Israel. They were only tenants, with a right as tenants only if they continued to obey the Lord, and cared for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. The point is repeatedly emphasized in the Torah and in the Prophets.
• “When Christian theology serves at the behest of political or historical forces in any generation – be it ancient crusades, religiously fueled nationalism, or the call of Christian Zionists – it loses its supreme mission in the world. Such theologies immediately neglect the centrality of what has transpired in Christ, they compete with the ideologies of the world that strive for power and control, and finally they become unfaithful to their Lord” [131].
• “Amidst calls to reclaim holy land, to reconquer territory in the name of God, to assume religious privilege for one tribe and not another, the New Testament says: No. Jesus called for a faithfulness that abandoned such things, that envisioned a different era, a different kingdom, where old territorial claims backed by religious privilege were no more” [131].

Conclusion

So, while we may and should appreciate the historical and theological significance of the ancient Temple, Jerusalem, and the land of Israel, these are not significant geographical, political, or theological categories for us. The New has replaced the old—and it is better than the old (Heb 8:6; John 2:10). Our “divinely appointed task” is “to bring that which the Temple and the land once held – the presence of God – into the nations of the world” [131]—not to direct them to the "Holy Land."

I for my part have visited Israel 25 times, and will continue to lead tours there whenever feasible. Yet this is only out of historical, biblical, and devotional interest—never out of a belief that the Lord favors Israel today, or considers modern Jews to be his chosen people. Biblically speaking, there is no more "holy land." Under the new covenant and in Christ all space and time is holy. The Lord's vineyard is no longer Israel, or in the land of Israel. Rather, it is global, and followers of the Messiah constitute his body, his flock, his vineyard, regardless of where they reside. The beautiful vision of Rev 7:9 continues to inspire Christians worldwide: "After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb." What a beautiful and compelling picture of the family of God!

 

CRÈME DE LA CRÈME
(culled from the material above)

1. Jesus’ central message was “the kingdom of God. While he announced the kingdom’s arrival within the land, in no manner is the kingdom linked to the territorial aspirations of Judaism” [33].
2. “At no point do the earliest Christians view the Holy Land as a locus of divine activity to which the people of the Roman empire must be drawn. They do not promote the Holy Land either for the Jew or for the Christian as a vital aspect of faith. No Diaspora Jew or pagan Roman is converted and then reminded of the importance of the Holy Land. The early Christians possessed no territorial theology. Early Christian preaching is utterly uninterested in a Jewish eschatology devoted to the restoration of the land. The kingdom of Christ began in Judea and is historically anchored there but it is not tethered to a political realization of that kingdom in the Holy Land. Echoing the message of the Gospels, the praxis of the Church betrays its theological commitments: Christians will find in Christ what Judaism had sought in the land” [59].
3. “For a Christian to return to a Jewish territoriality is to deny fundamentally what has transpired in the incarnation. It is to deflect appropriate devotion to the new place where God has appeared in residence, namely, in his Son. This explains why the New Testament applies to the person of Christ religious language formerly devoted to the Holy Land or the Temple. He is the new spatiality, the new locale where God may be met” [129-130].
4. “When Christian theology serves at the behest of political or historical forces in any generation – be it ancient crusades, religiously fueled nationalism, or the call of Christian Zionists – it loses its supreme mission in the world. Such theologies immediately neglect the centrality of what has transpired in Christ, they compete with the ideologies of the world that strive for power and control, and finally they become unfaithful to their Lord” [131].
5. “Amidst calls to reclaim holy land, to reconquer territory in the name of God, to assume religious privilege for one tribe and not another, the New Testament says: No. Jesus called for a faithfulness that abandoned such things, that envisioned a different era, a different kingdom, where old territorial claims backed by religious privilege were no more” [131].

Order Jesus and the Land.

For more on this and related topics, or if you have questions, please check out the material on Messianic Judaism. Or explore Burge's other books, articles, and talks on these important issues (like the one below).

“Why I’m Not a Christian Zionist” by Gary Burge