Scripture Catholic: Zionism

Scripture Catholic - Zionism

1. God does not owe the Jews any land or protection.

Zionism is based on the faulty assumption that God still owes the Jews the land He promised to give to Abraham’s descendants. Scripture, however, teaches that God has already fulfilled His promises to the Jews. For example, regarding the land in question, God says through Joshua:

“Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and having taken possession of it, they settled there” (Jos. 21:43).

God also declares through Solomon that all his promises to Israel have been fulfilled:

"Blessed be the LORD who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he uttered by Moses his servant” (1 Kings 8:56).

God further says through the prophet Nehemiah that His promise to grant the land to Abraham’s descendants has been fulfilled:

“Thou art the LORD, the God who didst choose Abram and bring him forth out of Ur of the Chalde'ans and give him the name Abraham; and thou didst find his heart faithful before thee, and didst make with him the covenant to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Per'izzite, the Jeb'usite, and the Gir'gashite; and thou hast fulfilled thy promise, for thou art righteous” (Neh. 9:7-8).

Thus, those who believe that God still owes the Jews land and protection by divine decree deny the plain meaning of Scripture and make God a liar.

In fact, the loss of Israel’s ancient holdings is a sign of God’s divine judgment against the Jews for rejecting His Son, Jesus Christ, their Messiah. God warned Israel in the Old Testament Scriptures:

“But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, `Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?' Then they will say, `Because they forsook the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the LORD has brought all this evil upon them.’” (1 Kings 9:6-9).

Scripture is clear that God owes the Jews nothing more, and suggests that the Jews are suffering the ramifications of rejecting Jesus Christ. They have been “broken off” of the root of Christ “because of their unbelief” (Rom. 11:19-20). However, Paul says that the Jews can be grafted in again, “if they do not persist in their unbelief,” for God has the power to do so (Rom. 11:23).

We should also note that the Old Covenant that God entered into with the Jews has been superseded by the New Covenant of Christ (the Church calls this doctrine “supercessionism”). This happened the moment that God tore the curtain of the Jewish Temple in two (Matt. 27:51). When we speak of the “Old Covenant,” we are referring to the “Mosaic covenant,” that is, the law that God gave the Jews through Moses (see 2 Cor. 3:14). We are not referring to the Abrahamic covenant which, because it was based on grace through faith, was incorporated into the New Covenant of Christ. This is why Paul says that Abraham is the father of the children of the New Covenant (see Rom. 4:16; 9:7; Gal. 3:29; James 2:21; see also Gal. 3:9,14,16,18).

The only place where the phrase “Old Covenant” is used in the New Testament is in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and Paul says that “through Christ it is taken away” (see 2 Cor. 3:14). Referring to the abrogation of the Old Covenant, Paul tells the Hebrews that “a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness” (Heb. 7:18). The phrase “set aside” (from the Greek aphetesis) means to annul. Again, referring to the Old Covenant, Paul says “He abolishes the first in order to establish the second” (Heb. 10:9). The word “abolish” (from the Greek anaireo) means to abrogate or destroy. Paul uses very specific language to teach that the Old Covenant has been rendered null and void by the New Covenant of Jesus Christ (see also Heb. 8:7).

This means that the Jews are no longer in a saving covenant with God until they renounce Judaism and are baptized into Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church has affirmed this fact throughout her history (e.g., the Council of Florence; the Council of Trent; Second Vatican Council, Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis). Thus, even though the Second Vatican Council affirmed a person’s civil (but not moral) right to religious liberty, it taught that the Church must preach the gospel to the Jews, as she does to everyone else (Nostra Aetate, 23).