Archive for March, 2008
The Threat of Christian Zionism
Posted by thetenthleper in Eschatology on March 24, 2008
-Matthew 5:9
I just found a great article on Christian Zionism that I felt compelled to share. The article saves me a lot of breath. Much of what I’m going to posting here in the near future deals in part with this issue, so I thought I’d go ahead and post the link. You can read it here:
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/zionism.html
I wish I could say that the Zionist movement’s only flaw is that Biblically inaccurate. (I’ll defend that later.) However it has very real consequences. People die. I need to go ahead and say that I’m not against the nation of Israel. If these words of mine were to fall in the hands of some Christian circles, I’d be labeled anti-semitic, but I’m not. I’m pro-justice. In many churches today, what you hear about with regard to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is all the injustices done against Israel. True, they’ve done some crap. I’m not defending them. But no one ever talks about the injustices Israel commits against Palestine. Earlier this month, YahooNews ran a report showing that Israel’s current blockade against the Gaza Strip has created the worst humanitarian crisis since their occupation of the area began in 1967. Nothing excuses this. Nothing gives Israel, or any nation for that matter, the right to commit injustices like this. These are the very things scripture is AGAINST. Zionism has created the delusion that when Israel does this, since it’s really their land, it’s okay. Furthermore, this fails to take into account the Christians who live in Palestine who share in kind the current huminatarian crisis. But even if all that land is supposed to be theirs, what biblical mandate do they have to achieve God’s promise by ungodly means? Or as author Palmer Robertson asks, “should the Jewish people, quite apart from their lack of faith in the Messiah who has come, receive the blessings of the Messiah’s reign if basic principles of justice are violated in the process?”
Ironically, even Christians who take the peacemaker position (whom Christ calls blessed) are viewed by Zionists as adherents of an anti-semitic, pro-antichrist agenda. Many in the name of Christ are in vehement opposition to any talks of peace agreements between Israel and Palestine for the sake of Israel. Know who holds the same opposition but for the sake of Palestine? Al-Qaeda. Surely those who call on the name of Jesus can do better than to resort to any resolution short of justice for both sides of the issue.
Anyway, more to come on this later.
-Isaiah 1:17
What’s Next for Mike Huckabee
Posted by thetenthleper in Politics/Culture on March 9, 2008
I found the following article a couple days ago by Jim Wallis of Sojo.net. It was very flattering of Mike Huckabee, and it serves to demonstrate the broadening social concerns among evangelical Christians. Enjoy!
What’s Next for Mike Huckabee?
Tuesday evening, John McCain clinched the Republican nomination for president, and Mike Huckabee, the last remaining contender, conceded defeat. Huckabee’s campaign, and the failure of the Religious Right to support him, has been one of the most interesting and puzzling stories of this primary season
While Huckabee is certainly a social conservative, he refused to toe the line on a number of issues. And that is more evidence for why I say the monologue of the Religious Right has ended and the evangelical agenda has broadened.
In the Republican YouTube debate, the candidates were asked if they believed every word of the Bible. Huckabee said that while some of the Bible was allegorical, we needed to take much of it much more seriously than we do - such the words of Jesus that say, “As you have done to the least of these you have done to me.” This is not the text that most conservatives quote when asked about the authority of the Bible. In an interview with Reuters in January, Huckabee spoke about the broadening evangelical agenda:
Unquestionably there is a maturing that is going on within the evangelical movement. It doesn’t mean that evangelicals are any less concerned about traditional families and the sanctity of life. It just means that they also realize that we have real responsibility in areas like disease and hunger and poverty and that these are issues that people of faith have to address.
And when conservative columnists such as Robert Novak attacked Huckabee for not being a “real conservative,” this is precisely what they meant. When Huckabee was governor of Arkansas, he advocated spending money on poor people – behavior that is offensive to the economically conservative wing of the Republican Party. While Huckabee is a consistent social conservative, he is considered suspect by the party’s economic conservatives who, of course, don’t support spending any money on overcoming poverty. Huckabee disagrees with them.
On immigration, in that same debate, there was an all-out attack on “illegal aliens” who became the new scapegoat, the new “other,” for many of the Republican candidates – and the preferred way to energize their primary base. Except for the acknowledgement from John McCain that “these are God’s children too,” every Republican candidate preceded to demagogue the issue, beating up on undocumented immigrants for crass political gain.
But then Mike Huckabee spoke. He agreed that our borders need to be protected and enforced (I do too), but then defended his support for a failed bill in Arkansas to give scholarships to exceptional students – including undocumented children. He said he didn’t want to punish children for their parents’ illegal actions because “that’s not what we typically do in this country.” This educational plan, he said, was intended to bring people from illegal to legal status. He continued, saying that he had received a good education; but if he hadn’t, “I wouldn’t be standing on this stage; I might be picking lettuce; I might be a person who needed government support.” Then he said, “In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.” Although he later moved more to the right in the heat of the primaries, that response remains.
Is that ultimately why the leaders of the Religious Right didn’t support Mike Huckabee until late in the primary season? Is it because many on the Religious Right are really more committed to economic conservatism than social conservatism? Have religious conservatives gotten so used to their access to power that are they afraid to risk standing for principle over pragmatism? Huckabee was the most consistent social conservative Republican in the race – he won a straw poll at the FRC Values Voters Summit this winter - yet most of the leaders of the Religious Right never rallied around him. But the evangelical base did, keeping him in the race until this week.
Now that he is out of the race, what’s next for Huckabee? The conservative Washington Times said that Huckabee is at the forefront of an evangelical revival, and quoted his former communications director as saying
He has become the leader of a new generation of Christian conservative voters. … There is nobody else you can identify outside of Mike Huckabee as a leading person to take on that role, really in a new era where evangelicals care about a lot of things like the environment and working with the poor.
And, as former Bush staffer David Kuo wrote in The Washington Post,
That there’s now a pitched battle for the soul of the religious right is a horrifying thought to Republican leaders long familiar with the old religious right, a hierarchical group dominated by larger-than-life figures who’d anointed themselves Jesus’s political representatives. But that movement is withering at the top and in revolt at the grass-roots. … What’s new is how widespread social justice issues are in the evangelical world. Leading New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, a conservative, says that the greatest moral issue today is not abortion but the economic inequality between the U.S. and Europe and the developing world.
So, stay tuned. We haven’t heard the last from Mike Huckabee.
-Jim Wallis
The Importance of Melchizedek
Posted by thetenthleper in Bible, Doctrine & Theology on March 7, 2008
“The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’”
Psalm 110:4
Melchizedek is a word in the Bible which used to cause me great annoyance. Early on in my Christian walk, I would dread the middle portion of the book of Hebrews, where the writer labors upon this guy. Who or what is a Melchizedek? And why is it important?
Melchizedek only comes up twice in the Old Testament, neither of which dwells on him much at all. We first see him in the book of Genesis. After Abram (Abraham) defeats the king Chedorlaomer, he is met by the king of Sodom as well as the king of Salem named Melchizedek. We find out that in addition to being the king of Salem he is also a priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:18). He brought Abram bread and wine and blessed him. In return, Abram gave him a tenth of everything he had. Melchizedek then fades out of Scripture, only to reappear much later in the Psalms. It is here that God makes an oath to David’s Lord (Jesus the Messiah), saying “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” And this is all we ever hear of the mysterious king of Salem. Given only two very vague references to this guy, it’s hard to believe that he is so important. But the book of Hebrews tells us why.
The book was written to Hebrew Christians facing the temptation to go back to the old covenant way of doing things (priests, sacrifices, etc.). The old priesthood given by God to the Israelites in the wilderness was now futile. During the wilderness wanderings and beyond, God had appointed the tribe of Levi to be priests. And only the Levites could be priests. “But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance; the LORD God of Israel is their inheritance, just as he said to them” (Joshua 13:33). This is what is referred to as the Levitical priesthood. The writer of Hebrews is laboring to show that Christ now serves as our High Priest. But there’s a problem for the Hebrews: only Levites could serve as priests. Jesus was born into the Tribe of Judah, not Levi. What claim to priesthood did he then have? To the Levitical priesthood, none at all. The only logical way for Jesus, who was not a Levite, to be a priest would be for him to become the priest according to different priesthood.
The Better Priesthood
So what is this non-Levitical priesthood? It is the Melchizedekian priesthood. Hebrews 7 shows us the characteristics of this priesthood compared with the Levitical priesthood by looking at the encounter between him and Abram in Genesis 14. Verses 1 and 2 briefly recall the event. In verse 2 we see that his name means “king of righteousness.” Pretty honorable. Furthermore we see that he is the king of Salem, or “peace.” It is Salem which would later be designated as the “City/Foundation of peace,” or in hebrew: “Jerusalem”. So we see that Melchizedek is the king of righteousness and peace. Then he says
“He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.”
-Hebrews 7:3
The point of this verse isn’t to say that Melchizedek had no literal parents, but rather that his genealogy is curiously completely absent from a book which does well to trace lineages. Such absence isn’t incidental but purposeful. It’s here that we see a crucial aspect of his priesthood: it is not passed on through descent like the Levitical priesthood. Without a record of his birth and death, and being a a type and shadow of Christ, his priesthood is seen to be immortal. This priesthood, unlike the Levitical priesthood, will never come to an end.
The author then moves on in verses 4 through 10 to show that Melchizedek’s priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood. “See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils!” If Abraham the patriarch, a guy who holds significant weight in Scripture is giving tithes to this other guy, then he deserves to be looked at closely. The author notes how Levi’s descendants collected tithes from their brothers, all of whom are descended from Abraham. But Melchizedek, who does not share descent with Abraham, received tithes from him. Melchizedek, put simply, ranks higher than Abraham the patriarch. The Jews in Jesus’ day bragged that “Abraham is our father” (John 8:39). Maybe so, but there was someone much greater than Abraham in the Old Testament. As Hebrews says:
“It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.”
Hebrews 7:7
It must also be noted that as Melchizedek blessed Abraham, the Gentile blessed the Jew. Continuing, the scriptures say that as a descendant of one who paid tithes to Melchizedek, Levi effectually also paid tithes to him through Abraham. This underscores the inferiority of the Levitical priesthood to the Melchizedekian priesthood. Based on the supremacy of this Order, we can stand to reason that if another were to arise as a priest of this order, then that person would nullify the inferior Levitical order. This honor was promised by God to his son Jesus Christ in Psalm 110:4. It is Jesus who rose up as a priest of this other, far more superior, priestly order, “not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16). Now that a new priest has arisen after a superior priesthood, the inferior is set aside. This is the author’s argument.
A Couple of Implications
Here are a few implications of the Melchizedekian priesthood:
1) Earlier I mentioned that Abraham the Jew was blessed by Melchizedek the Gentile. This is anything but an anti-semitic remark. After all, this superior priesthood is now and forever held by a man of Jewish descent. There is no longer any distinction between Jew and Gentile (Galatians 3:28). None, nada, zip. Being of physical Jewish descent counts for nothing in the order of Melchizedek. Abraham’s true offspring are those who belong to Christ (Galatians 3:29, Romans 9:6-7, John 9:39-47). The entirety of the old Jewish system of priests and sacrifices is subordinate and outranked by a Gentile priest of God, whose office is now held by a Jew. The implication of this is that it makes no difference whether we are Jewish or Gentile. There is no longer a distinction.
2) If you remember, Melchizedek was not just a priest. He also held another office. For the Levites, their priesthood allowed them to be only priests and nothing else. Genesis tells us that Melchizedek was not just a priest, he was a king. As priest of this order, Jesus is forever our faithful high priest and forever our king. Every reference you’ve ever heard of Jesus as King, every time you’ve heard someone mention “King Jesus” is rooted in the oath God gave him in Psalm 110:4 in which Jesus is promised priesthood after an order which includes the role of king. His role was never just to take away our sins on the cross. The reason for the cross and the atonement on our behalf was to redeem a people for himself to rule over. He is not just our savior. He’s our king. Jesus our priest has atoned for our sins and lives forever to make intercession on our behalf (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus our king lives forever to be our peaceful ruler. He is the king of righteousness and the king of peace. Melchizedek’s kingship was over Jerusalem. Christ’s kingship is over the heavenly Jerusalem, his Bride. He is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, and he has offered one sacrifice for our sins for all time: himself. We are now righteous because he is righteous. God does not look upon a Christian apart from Christ. He is also a king forever, and his kingdom is currently spreading. It is a kingdom of peace. This is our hope as Christians. It is what we are to set our minds upon ALWAYS (Colossians 3:1-2). And it is this constant gaze which brings us the joy and peace that Christ came to give us (Isaiah 26:3).
