Christ's Atonement and the Middle East Conflict

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Christ's Atonement and the Middle East Conflict

Introduction
This essay was written in August, 2006, at a time when Israel and her neighbors were engaged in armed conflict. This conflict was claiming the lives of civilians on all sides, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and in Israel. A number of Christians in the States see the conflict as the prelude to the end times when God will decisively defeat Israel's enemies. I do not agree with that assessment. In fact, I consider it irresponsible, even dangerous. The essay follows.

Recently some parishioners gave me a video of a sermon preached at one of the largest conservative and historic churches of our city. The preacher's text was Ezekiel 38, which he interpreted as prophesying present events in the Middle East. According to the sermon, God is stirring up the nations around Israel to attack her (38:1-17). Then, just as Israel's defeat seems certain, God's fury will fall upon the attackers and they will be destroyed by an earthquake, then by rain, hail, fire and brimstone from heaven (38:17-23). When that happens, and here the congregation applauded, the God of Israel will be seen as the God of the whole world (38:16, 23). The preacher further claimed that Israel was "the apple of God's eye," and therefore, the well-being of any nation depended upon how that nation treated Israel. One operative corollary is that the United States should support Israel regardless of her behavior.

My purpose in this essay is to relate this sermon to Christ's atonement, to the Middle East, and to political conflict in general.

How are we to understand Christ's atoning work on the cross? There are a number of approaches: Christ's death as moral example, as fulfilling divine justice, as conquering the devil, as ransom, as satisfaction for sin, and as propitiation for the wrath of God. All these approaches are supported by Scripture, but I will focus on the last two, satisfaction and propitiation.(1)

According to the satisfaction theory, our sins were placed on Christ as he suffered on the cross. The scapegoat of Lev. 16:20-22 and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 were types of Christ's bearing our sin, verified in passages such as John 1:29; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13; Heb. 9:28; and I Peter 2:24. Propitiation means that God hates sin, pouring out his wrath on those who oppose his holy will. There are numerous Old Testament passages describing the wrath of God, and it is a significant theme in the parables of Jesus. Above all, the wrath of God is the cup of suffering that Christ drank (Mark 10:38, John 18:11, Luke 22:42-44).

Whoever recalls other contexts of crisis in the Bible where the cup is the symbol of divine wrath (e.g. Ps. 60:3, 75:8; Isa. 51:17, Jer. 25:15; 49:12; etc.), and takes with full seriousness the cry of Jesus on the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; cf. Ps. 22:1),(2) can scarcely escape the conclusion that as Jesus approached his death, he knew the full weight--without himself being its provocation--of the wrath of God.(3)

As the rest of the New Testament makes clear, Christ's bearing God's wrath on the cross delivers sinners from the divine judgment and thereby grants eternal life to believers (Rom. 5:9-12, Gal. 3:13; Eph. 2:3-7, I Thess. 1:10, 5:9-10, Heb. 9:26, I Pet. 1:18-19). Now, how does this apply to the sermon on Ezekiel 38?

The sermon on Ezekiel 38 was a severe distortion of the gospel. To begin with, the preacher did not correctly interpret Scripture, failing to see that Jesus Christ, not Israel and the Arab states, is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The New Testament Church, the early Church, and the Reformers, all read the Old Testament law and prophets as fulfilled in Christ.(4) This fulfillment was understood typologically. For example, the earthquake, rain, hail, fire and brimstone of Ezekiel 38 are types of God's judgment on sin. God's decisive judgment against sin occurred on the cross, not in the destruction of various nations. The cross fulfills the judgments of Ezekiel 38. That is the gospel. Christ died in our place, he suffered the wrath of God that falls on individuals and nations alike. According to Anglican biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, it is a misreading of the biblical text to see "the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy."(5) Such a reading dishonors Jesus Christ. He and he alone is the one who suffered the wrath of God, and made a full, complete, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Secondly, God does judge nations and individuals. But he does not judge according to present day Israel. He judges in accordance with Christ. Jesus, not the modern state of Israel, is "the apple of God's eye." In reference to Christ, the terrible events of the Middle East are the result of sin. They are the kind of power politics that led Pilate to crucify Jesus Christ when the crowd howled for his crucifixion and their leaders proclaimed "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15). The crowd was party to the crucifixion, a crucifixion that is repeated all over the world as nations slaughter each other. This slaughter is supported by other nations who fund the armaments while their citizens believe various apocalyptic scenarios, whether Christian or Muslim, that justify the massacres. As preached, the Ezekiel 38 sermon allowed the congregation to walk away with no sense of their complicity in the horrors. It gave them and their government carte blanche to fund and support reprisals by Israel beyond any sense of proportion. The fact that Arab organizations commit horrible crimes does not exonerate everything Israel does. All proportion is lost, all sense of justice disappears, and all desire for negotiation vanishes, when terrible political events are projected into a cosmic drama in which God will magically resolve problems created and perpetuated by human sin. What a dishonoring of the gospel, what horrible consequences, and what massive human suffering results from this misreading of Scripture.

Had the gospel been preached the congregation would have been told how they were complicit in the events of the Middle East. They would have been told that unless they repented, Ezekiel 38 would happen to them and their country. They would have heard that Christ died for their sins, that the judgments of Ezekiel 38 fell on Christ, that God accepted Jesus' atoning work, and by his suffering they are forgiven and raised to new life. They would have been asked to respond to Christ in faith. They could have been asked to do some research into the history of the Middle East, into what is actually happening, rather than relying on television, official White House statements, and cosmic drama. The congregation could support the best of this sinful world's solutions: negotiation, compromise, and if all else fails, lawful force. One could now ask: Do such political solutions actually work, and will they work in the Middle East with its terrible history? Before addressing that question, let me mention aspects of that history.

The present conflict in the Middle East is the latest cycle of an endless series of reprisals that spiral backwards into the past. These reprisals include such things as suicide bombings by Palestinians, reprisals by Israel, Israelis driving Palestinians from their homes in the Occupied Territories, shelling by both sides, the original seizure of territory by Israel, the consequent attack by the Arab states, prior British conquest of the Middle East, the Nazi horrors against the Jews, the conquest of the Middle East by the Turks, the pogroms against the Jews during the Middle Ages, the Crusades which slaughtered Arabs and Jews alike, the violent conquests of Islam, and forever backward and forward in an unending series of reprisals that will never end. Political solutions, negotiation, compromise, and lawful force should always be attempted. Such efforts can sometimes effect a temporary and relative peace. But that is not enough. The problem is so deeply entrenched that only God can solve it, and he has done so in Jesus Christ. The cycle of reprisals comes to an end in one place and one place only: the cross of Christ. That is the gospel, and until the gospel is proclaimed, believed, and practiced, there will be no real peace: only wars, reprisals, lies, and distortions without end. Come Lord Jesus.

Endnotes

1. For a discussion of the various theories of the atonement see Millard J Erickson, Christian Theology, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), pp. 799-819, 828-835.
2. In light of Christ's cry of dereliction on the cross, as well as Romans 1, I understand God's wrath as abandoning sinners to the consequences of their sins rather than actively inflicting evil upon anyone.
3. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, edited by George Arthus Buttrick and Emory Stevens Bucke (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), p. 907.
4. See, for example, the outstanding text by Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1991).
5. N.T. Wright, The Last Word, (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 108.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, PhD
August, 2006