In Touch Quarter 2 - 2014

From Rolling
My Eyes to
Raising My
Eyes
At the CFI-UK Annual Conference
on September 20 th , one of our two
speakers will be Simon Ponsonby.
Here he explains how he was forced
to rethink his position on the purpose
and place of the land of Israel.
It is never comfortable realising
you are wrong. But that was
my growing awareness around
2007, as I was forced to rethink
my position about the purpose
and place of the land of Israel
and the Jewish people in God’s
economy. I was brought up in a
home where the Jewish people
were honoured and prayed for; the
Jewish Chronicle was delivered
weekly; my father was fluent in
Biblical Hebrew and ran classes
in introductory Hebrew attended
by late middle-aged women
with head coverings, filling my
house with Hebrew mutterings. I
attended the odd Prayer for Israel
meeting. But somewhere along
the line I was inoculated against
any hint of a Christian Zionist
Theology. Studying theology
degrees as an undergraduate
and graduate, I avoided learning
Hebrew and gave less attention
to Old Testament studies than
other theological disciplines.
Intellectually and practically I
inculcated the prevailing view that
Israel had served their purpose in
being the locus and focus of divine
revelation and divine incarnation
and, having launched the Church,
like booster rockets on a space ship,
she could now fall away. The Law
was fulfilled in Christ, the Jewish
religion was redundant, replaced,
superseded, made null and void,
katargesas (Ephesians 2:14). The
New Israel, the true Israel was
the Church. God’s first covenant
people and a modern Israel nation
state became irrelevant. I avoided
several opportunities to visit Israel,
just couldn’t see the point, and I
felt rather superior to those who
returned all gooey- eyed, claiming
they now “saw Israel”.
However, three factors
converged to cause my own volte
face. First, I finally went to Israel.
What struck me was the palpable
sense of spiritual darkness,
especially in Jerusalem. You could
almost cut the air it seemed so thick
with demonic oppression. I began
to muse: why was the enemy so
interested in this place? Why was
it so contested spiritually? Was
it the centuries of conflict, the
continual blood letting, the current
political machinations? I began to
wonder whether the Evil One took
a special interest in Israel precisely
because it was still significant to
the Holy One of Israel. If Israel
was strategically significant to
God, then the Enemy would have
a vested interest in securing it.
Secondly, I drove to Somerset to
have a once and for all Bible study
with my dad about Israel. After
some hours of robust exchange,
trying to prove to dad that Israel
as a people and place were
finished with in God’s economy,
my dad hit me with a punch that
had me reeling: “Simon, you are
wrong, you have conflated the
Covenants.” He agreed that the
Mosaic Covenant was fulfilled
in Christ and appropriated by
faith, as Hebrews makes clear –
but pointed out that just as the
Noachic Covenant still stands as
the Jerusalem Council made clear
(Genesis 8, Acts 15) so too does the
Abrahamic Covenant (Galatians
3:17), a covenant anticipating
Christ, for sure, but also promise
of a particular land to a particular
people in perpetuity. Finally he
had my attention. He showed me
Scripture after Scripture on the
End Time promises and prophecies
about the purpose of Israel, people
and place, in God’s economy.
How could I have read the Bible so
many times, taught it for 20 years,
earned two degrees in theology
and missed all this? I recall driving
home appalled. If dad was right,
I was wrong. I needed to rethink
God and Israel, people and place.
This coincided with the third
factor, being asked by my
colleagues to teach a course for
a year on Eschatology. Seeing
trouble ahead I protested, but
reluctantly agreed. It was a
difficult year and I admit I felt I
was having a breakdown. I simply
could not make the jigsaw pieces
fit, without taking more literally
certain Biblical references: Would
Israel need to return to the land
before the return of the Lord? What
factors needed to be in place before
Jesus returned? Would Jesus’ feet
really touch down on the Mount
of Olives - why? What were the
signs that needed fulfilling before
He returned – Israel in the land?
Where would Armageddon occur
– at Armageddon? What did it
mean for “all Israel to be saved” once
the “fullness of the Gentiles” came
in?
And as I worked through these
issues, I saw that only a more literal
interpretation did justice to the
many texts and enabled a coherent
eschatology. This theology made
sense of why Israel was so contested
and why the Jewish people so
oppressed - precisely because they
were central to the End Time plans
and purposes of Jesus, plans the
Evil One would do all he could
to thwart. Far from Israel having
served her purpose, as I once
held, Israel’s finest hour was yet to
come. And I finally stopped rolling
my eyes at the mention of Israel
and the Jews, and began to lift my
eyes up to the mountains (of Zion)
from whence cometh my help, the
maker of heaven and earth.
8 // IN TOUCH