In the last year, I wrote two essays on Israel, one for The Federalist and one for Theopolis. Like all things related to Israel these days, they generated some vigorous responses. In this essay, I want to counter-respond to a couple of critics of my articles.
First, Jerry Bowyer pushed back against my Theopolis article in a Facebook post. His response was re-posted by Andrew Sandlin. Here are his comments in full:
“See the disappointing article below which says that the Jews killed Jesus but the “roman gentiles were also involved.”
And that “Historically speaking, Jews were the “Christ killers.” But theologically speaking, we are all “Christ killers.”.
And there it is, Theopolis playing footsie with the current neo-nationalist right.
Some responses: The Romans were a lot more than just also involved. Historically speaking the Roman’s killed Jesus. Romans tried Him, hoisted him onto the cross, nailed Him to it and finally stuck a spear in his side. All the Gospels are perfectly clear on this point as is the creed “Crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato”.
Were Jewish leaders involved? Of course they were. But the Herodian faction of the Temple elite is not “the Jews”. Judaios can mean Judean as well as Jew as Tom Wright has argued, and as I argue in my book Judean is probably the preferred translation in this context. Otherwise you get verses which say that Jesus went to Galilee to get away from the Jews, which doesn’t make sense since Galilee was also predominately Jewish.
Translate it as Judeans, though, and it makes sense. Jesus left Judea to get away from Judeans.
The Galilean Jews had nothing to do with killing Jesus. Neither did the Babylonian and Alexandrian Jews. Neither did the vast majority even of ordinary Jews in Judea. One particular faction, those associated with Caiphas conspired against Jesus to get the Romans to kill him.
Now the piece goes on to make a lot of great observations which are perfectly consistent with standard reformed covenant theology. But for Pete’s sake, in this environment of rising antisemitism which is creeping into the post liberal right (which Theopolis has clearly embraced) can’t we be a little careful about how we talk? Jews as “Christ killer” is a serious phrase with a bloody past. I suggest some thoughtful edits to the piece so that these incautious comments do not interfere with the serious discussion which followed.”
It is wild to see Bowyer suggest that what I wrote is “playing footsie” with the neo-nationalist right since I have written extensively on that issue, as have other Theopolitan voices. Whatever Bowyer might have in mind when he describes Theopolis as part of the “post-liberal right,” to lump Theopolis in with the alt-right anti-Semites that myself and others have argued so vigorously against elsewhere is just reckless and irresponsible. Not all forms of post-liberalism are ethno-nationalist or anti-Semitic.
Bowyer, someone whose work I have respected in other contexts, does not come close to dealing honestly what I actually wrote, nor does he provide a reasonable counter-argument. I appreciate that he found much of the article helpful, but his criticisms deserve a response because his pattern of reasoning, if followed consistently, would actually open the NT up to the charge of anti-Semitism.
First, as my original article pointed out, the Jews were certainly guilty of attempted murder before they finally succeeded in getting Jesus crucified. Consider these examples:
• In Nazareth (early in his ministry) — After Jesus preached in his hometown synagogue and claimed to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, the crowd became furious, drove him out of town, and tried to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:28–30). He passed through the midst of them unharmed.
• After healing on the Sabbath — The Pharisees and Herodians began plotting to destroy/kill him after he healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1–6; also Matthew 12:9–14; Luke 6:6–11).
• After the healing at the pool of Bethesda — The Jewish leaders persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him for healing on the Sabbath and for calling God his Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:16–18).
• During the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem — The Jews sought to kill him, which is why he initially stayed in Galilee (John 7:1). Later in the same chapter, officers were sent to arrest him, but they failed (John 7:30, 32, 44–46; some in the crowd even wanted to seize him).
• After claiming to be greater than Abraham (“Before Abraham was, I am”) — The Jews picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy, but he hid himself and escaped from the temple (John 8:58–59).
• After declaring “I and the Father are one” — Again, the Jews picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy (claiming to be God). He escaped their grasp (John 10:30–39).
• After raising Lazarus from the dead — Many Jews believed in Jesus, but the chief priests and Pharisees explicitly took counsel together to put him to death (John 11:45–53). They also issued orders to arrest him if anyone knew his whereabouts (John 11:57), and they plotted to kill Lazarus too.
• Final plot during Holy Week — After Jesus cleansed the temple and taught there, the chief priests, scribes, and elders sought how to destroy him (Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47). They met in council (with Caiaphas the high priest) and plotted to arrest and kill him by stealth, avoiding a riot during Passover (Matthew 26:1–5; Mark 14:1–2; Luke 22:1–2).
These are just facts drawn from the gospels. Recounting them is not anti-Semitic, nor should they be controversial. The only reason, historically speaking, the Romans were eventually involved in the crucifixion of Jesus is that the Jews repeatedly failed to do it on their own – despite making as many as eight attempts to kill him. Again, these are historical facts for anyone who takes the Scriptures seriously.
Second, while Rome obviously played a role in Jesus’ death, the NT does not present Rome in an entirely negative light. It’s true that Rome eventually became a wild beast that persecuted the church. There are hints of this already in Acts and Revelation. Rome was certainly an evil empire, with idolatrous pretensions, judged by biblical standards. But the main opposition to the early apostolic-era church came from unbelieving Jews, for obvious reasons. Jewish hatred of Christ spilled over into hatred of Christians. The first Christian martyr (Stephen) was executed solely by Jews (can we call first century Jews “Stephen-killers”?). It was Jews, like Paul before his conversion, who aggressively hunted down Christians – not Romans. It was Jews who beat and imprisoned the apostles in the early chapters of Acts.
Again, the overall portrait of Rome we get from the NT is mixed, not uniformly negative. Rome provided a stable society within which Jews were given many privileges/freedoms and the early Christians (no doubt viewed as a new sect within Judaism at first since most early Christians were Jewish) were able to carry out their mission. The apostles spread the gospel using the infrastructure of the Roman Empire, including the roads, the common language, and the general social peace that Rome provided. Paul made appeal to his Roman citizenship and it was honored. Members of the Roman military are portrayed quite positively in passages like Matthew 8:5ff and Acts 10:1ff. By the time Philippians is written, there are converts even in Caesar’s household (Phil. 4:22; cf. Romans 16:23). Proconsul Sergius Paulus converts in Acts 13, probably becoming the first Christian civil magistrate. It is likely that Theophilus, to whom Luke addresses his two volumes in the NT, was a government official and possibly the patron of Luke’s work. Yes, Rome does begin to persecute Christians before Acts ends – and most certainly became a persecutor after the apostolic age ended. But to be fair to Rome requires seeing the whole picture. Peter Leithart’s recent article “Not So Evil Empire?” provides a balanced summary:
“Rome is a beast, but in Acts often a friendly one….For years, many scholars have said the New Testament presents a uniformly negative portrait of the Roman Empire. Rome is the Beast of Revelation and the harlot city drunk on the blood of saints. Jesus and his apostles proclaim the kingdom of God to launch a counter-imperial movement against the regime of Caesar….At a fundamental level, the gospel challenges the claims of Rome—its soteriological pretense that Rome spreads peace and justice (see City of God, Books 1–10), its eschatological hope of imperium sine fine, and its blasphemous claim that Caesar is son of God, lord, and savior. A clash was inevitable, especially after Rome was enlisted as a minion of the Dragon (Rev. 12–13). Even beneficent beasts can turn and trample you.”
What then of Rome’s role in the crucifixion of Jesus? A survey of the gospel data gives the same mixed review of the Romans that we see in the rest of the NT. Yes, it is true as Bowyer says, that Rome was quite involved. The Jews could not succeed in their plot to kill Jesus without Roman help. The Romans abused him, tried him in court, hoisted him onto the cross, nailed him to it, and finally stuck a spear in his side. So, yes, it’s true that Jesus was “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” as the early creeds confess. Roman soldiers mocked him as he was dying and stood guard at his tomb.
But this is not quite the whole picture. Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. He declares Jesus’ innocence three times. He tried to release Jesus three times. Whereas the Jews were zealous about finding a way to murder Jesus, Pilate was looking for a way out of it. He finally caved in to Jewish pressure, fearing riots, blackmail, and loss of his office. So even Pilate’s role cannot be understood apart from his interaction with the Jews.
This is not at all to whitewash Pilate’s involvement. What he did was utterly abominable. He sentenced a man he knew was innocent to death by crucifixion. But that’s the whole point – a point I made very, very clear in the article.
The gospel accounts expose the wickedness of both Jews and Gentiles. As pointed out in my original article, the cross fulfills Psalm 2:1-3, which implicates all of humanity in Jesus’ death. The best humanity had to offer – the Jewish religious leadership and the Roman political leadership – conspired together against the Lord’s anointed. The cross reveals Jewish claims to be righteous as bankrupt, even as it reveals Roman claims to be just to be bankrupt. The death of Jesus shows the pax Romana was not a real peace and Rome’s claims to embody eternal justice a sham. In fact, the cross reveals all of us to be spiritually bankrupt. The entire human race is sinful, and so the entire human race is involved in Jesus death – not historically, obviously, but most certainly theologically. Of course the Jews were Christ-killers. The Romans were Christ-killers too. Indeed, all of sinful humanity is made up of Christ-killers. I am a Christ-killer. You are a Christ-killer. We are all Christ-killers. It was all of our sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. If any of us had been in the Garden of Eden, we would have acted exactly as Adam and Eve did, and if any of us had been in Jerusalem on the fateful Thursday/Friday, we would have all joined in putting the Son of God to death one way or another. The cross reveals our sin, even as it simultaneously reveals the grace of God and the way of salvation from sin.
Of course, I pointed all of this out in my original essay, and Bowyer even acknowledges it (sort of, anyway). What really drew Bowyer’s ire is that I specifically called Jews “Christ killers,” a phrase that supposedly has baggage. But we cannot let “baggage” keep us from speaking biblical truth. Again, any fair reading of my essay would have to conclude my point is that we are all “Christ killers” – and thus there is no implication that the Jews are uniquely malevolent, as anti-Semites generally claim. The Jews played a unique role in redemptive history from the time of Abraham up to 70AD, but they are not uniquely evil. I even quoted from Johann Heermann’s famous Lutheran Good Friday hymn, “Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended” to drive this point home. It’s hard for me to fathom how Bowyer missed it unless he has an axe to grind with Theopolis for other reasons.
What I find odd is that Bowyer actually wants to exclude some groups of people from participating in the crucifixion of Christ. He is particularly offended that I would call Jews “Christ killers” because many Jews were not directly involved. Bowyer writes,
“The Galilean Jews had nothing to do with killing Jesus. Neither did the Babylonian and Alexandrian Jews. Neither did the vast majority even of ordinary Jews in Judea. One particular faction, those associated with Caiphas conspired against Jesus to get the Romans to kill him.”
If all Bowyer means is that those groups were not present when Jesus was tried and crucified, he might have a point (cf. Acts 13:27-29). Then again, he might not. Jesus was crucified at Passover, and Jews/Israelites from all over the empire were gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. It is likely that some Jews from each of these regions were present in the mob that shouted “crucify him” and “his blood be upon us and our children!” True, John 18-19 focuses in the Jewish leadership, but to limit the guilt for crucifying Jesus to a small handful of elite Judeans is simply not historically defensible – and it’s theologically wrong.
As I pointed out in my original essay, when Peter preached at Pentecost fifty days later, Jews from all over the empire were once again gathered in Jerusalem for the feast (Acts 2:5ff). Luke, as narrator, in this instance, uses the label “Jew” to describe all Israelites, not just those dwelling in Judea. When Peter preaches to them, he implicates all of them, with no exception:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death” (Acts 2:22-23).
Peter was not speaking to Roman Gentiles. He was not speaking to a tiny faction of Jews. When he says, “you have crucified…you have put to death…” he is accusing his fellow Israelites as a people group. Perhaps Peter initially speaks to “men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem” in 2:14, but he broadens out the audience in verses 22 and 36 to all of Israel.
Peter says much the same thing is his sermon in Acts 3:
“Men of Israel…The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life” (Acts 3:11ff).
Note what Peter says to his fellow Israelites: You delivered Jesus up to be crucified. You killed the Prince of Life. Pilate was determined to let Jesus go and you denied him. You asked for a murder to be released instead. You – you men of Israel – killed the Holy One, the Just One. If it’s wrong or incautious to speak that way, Peter is guilty. Peter himself would have to be branded an anti-Semite. (But of course, if we think we know better than Peter and the other apostles how to preach the gospel, we are badly mistaken.)
We see the same thing going on in Acts 4. The prayer of the apostles cites Psalm 2 and names all the historical players in the death of Jesus – Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and “the peoples of Israel.” In Acts 5, Peter says to the Jews, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.” Note also that in Acts 4 and 5, it’s the Jews, not the Romans, who oppose and persecute the apostles. The Jewish hatred of Jesus spills over to his followers, as Jesus predicted.
Stephen does the same in his sermon in Acts 7, pointing out that the Jewish people as whole had a long history of rejecting those God sent to them. When they rejected Jesus, it was the culmination of a pattern that characterized the whole history of Israel. Stephen addresses his sermon to his fellow Israelites (7:2), recounts the story of the nation, and concludes this way: “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7:52). Like Peter, Stephen accuses his fellow countrymen of being Christ-killers.
Peter’s ministry to the Roman centurion Cornelius in Acts 10 is instructive. Peter says,
“The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all— that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree…” (Acts 10:36-39).
It’s noteworthy that in preaching to a Roman centurion, Peter says nothing about Roman involvement in the crucifixion. Peter says they – the Jews, the Israelites – killed Jesus by hanging him on a tree.
John’s gospel also drives this point home. Yes, John focuses on the role of the Jewish leaders who orchestrate his death in Pilate’s court. But John opens his gospel with a more universal account of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah and their God: “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:10-11).
Jesus’ parables repeatedly affirm the same reality in texts like Matthew 21:33ff, especially 38-39, and 22:1ff, especially 5-7. The parables are coded explanations of what’s happening in the gospel story itself. Again, while Jesus may be especially condemning the leadership of Israel in those parables, the leaders represented the people well, because Jesus pronounces judgment on that whole generation of Jews, not just their leaders (cf. Matthew 23-24).
In Romans 9-11, Paul anguishes over the fact that the vast bulk of his fellow Israelites have been hardened and thus continue to reject the Messiah. A remnant believes, but most do not. Paul does not just anguish over the sin of Jewish leadership; it is the stubborn unbelief of the nation as a whole that breaks his heart. They were given great privileges (Romans 9:4-5) and have committed a great sin in rejecting the Christ all those privileges pointed to (Romans 11:7-10).
Paul says the same in no uncertain terms in 1 Thessalonians 2:15, specifically linking Jewish rebellion to the crucifixion of Jesus:
“For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.”
Note Paul’s language about the Jews: “who killed the Lord Jesus.” Paul says the Jews were Jesus-killers. There’s no other way to take his language. The Jews did exactly the same thing to Jesus that they did to so many of the prophets who came before him. These same Jews are now persecuting Paul and other Jewish believers. In doing so, they are bringing wrath upon themselves – a wrath that was poured out in 70AD when a massive number of Jews (not just the nation’s leaders) were judged. The fact that judgment fell on Jerusalem as a whole in 70AD and not just the Jewish leadership proves the point – and disproves Bowyer’s claims. The fact that the covenant judgment of 70AD did not fall on Gentiles, but was administered by Gentiles, shows that God was holding his own covenant people responsible for the death of Jesus and the persecution of his followers in the apostolic age. To deny this for the sake of fending off anti-Semites is to de-historicize the message of the gospel. It is to take the death of Jesus out of its covenant context. The gospel story simply cannot be told without these crucial points related to Israel and her national apostasy. Jesus was a Jew. He was the Son of Abraham and the Son of David. He was Israel’s God in human form. And when he came to Israel, to his own special people, they nailed him to a tree. To de-Judaize Jesus’ death is to take away the concrete particulars of the story. It turns the gospel into an abstraction. We cannot let 2026 trends change the way we tell the gospel narrative; to do so is to cut the gospel off from all that came before it so the gospel is no longer seen as the completion of an ongoing story of God’s dealings with his chosen people. A gospel that leaves out Israel’s role in the story is not the gospel of the Bible; it’s not a gospel that fulfills the old covenant patterns, prophecies, types, and shadows.
The Jews not only rejected the first witness of Jesus himself – they also rejected the second witness of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the apostles. In other words, they committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In 70AD, the bill for their sins came due and the entire old creation/old covenant order came to an end. The end of the old covenant means that in a post-70AD world, ethnic Jews have no special blessing and no special curse any longer. The kingdom was taken from them and given to a people who will bear its fruit. The church is the fulfillment of Israel. The church is Israel, crucified and resurrected in Jesus, the Ultimate Israelite. In the church, believers from all nations are welcomed into Abraham’s family.
It’s true that sometimes the label “Jews” applies to a much smaller subset of Israelites – the Jewish leadership or the Jews who lived specifically in Judea. But Jesus spoke of a judgment that would come upon an entire generation of Jews (minus the remnant who trusted in Jesus as Messiah). Peter addresses his sermon used the broadest possible label when he says “Men of Israel….” How could Peter do this? How could he implicate ALL Jews/Israelites in an action only some of them were directly involved in? This is easy to answer if we understand the biblical story in its totality. The Jewish leadership represented the entire nation and acted on their behalf. The leaders were an accurate representation of the bulk of the nation.
We can go one step further. The Jewish leadership represented the Jewish people as a whole. But the Jewish people represented humanity as whole under the old covenant order. Even as the Levites served as priests on behalf of the nation of Israel, so the nation of Israel served as priests on behalf of the whole world. This is seen in many ways in the OT, e.g., the temple was built to be a house of prayer for all nations, at the Feast of Tabernacles 70 bulls were offered for the 70 nations in Genesis 10, etc. In John 15:18, Jesus says he is hated by the world – but to this point no Gentiles have expressed overt hatred of Jesus. No Romans have tried to kill him. All the hatred of Jesus has come from Jews. Only Jews had attempted to murder Jesus at point in time him. (Herod the Great who tried to kill baby Jesus might not have been accepted as a “real” Jew by other Jews because of his Edomite descent – by lineage he was a half-Jew — but he identified as Jewish, he was part of a people who had converted to Jewish faith, he rebuilt the Jewish temple, and he was regarded as Jewish by the Romans.) The rest of the passage in 15:19-25 makes it clear that the Jews represent the world and are acting for the world when they express hatred towards Jesus. The point is not that Jews were worse than Gentiles, but that they represented the Gentiles in their rejection of Jesus. Israel’s failure is everybody’s failure.
When Bowyer says that the claim “the Jews killed Jesus” is anti-Semitic, he thinks he’s guarding against anti-Semitism. In reality, he’s giving ammunition to those who claim the NT itself is anti-Semitic because, on his view, there is no other way to explain the language of the NT. I don’t really care what baggage might be associated with a particular phrase. I care about being biblical. And Bowyer has not refuted any of the claims I made in the original article. By trying to exonerate most Jews in Jesus’ day, Bowyer is not giving an accurate historical picture of what happened when Jesus was crucified, he is compromising the theological meaning of the cross, and he is de-Israelizing the Christian faith, cutting us off from our covenant roots.
Finally, I do not doubt that some have taken the role the Jews played in the crucifixion of Jesus and twisted it in such a way that they can justify Jew-hatred today. That has been a problem throughout history. But the answer to this perversion and misuse of Scripture is not to deny what the Bible plainly teaches, but rather to stress other truths the Bible teaches with equal plainness. In this case, at least a couple key truths must be emphasized.
Scripture makes it clear that Israel’s special covenant relationship with God came to an end in 70AD, when the temple was destroyed and the old covenant vanished away. While God promises a glorious future for ethnic Israel – they will be converted to faith in Christ and be brought into the church on a scale commensurate with their first century hardening – for now, unbelieving Jews are branches broken out of the covenant tree (Romans 11). But because they no longer have any special covenant relationship with God, they are also not under any special covenant curse. To treat modern days Jews as uniquely evil or uniquely cursed because of what their ethnic ancestors did 2000 years ago is a serious misreading of the biblical narrative – it is an error equal to and opposite of Dispensationalism in many ways.
Further, Paul reminds us that because the church has its roots in old covenant Israel – we are the family of Abraham, after all — we ought not to boast against those broken out Jewish branches. That kind of arrogance minimizes Gentile sin and exaggerates Jewish sin. Yes, the NT says some harsh things about first century Jews, as we have seen. But the picture the NT gives of Gentiles outside of Christ is not exactly pretty. In texts like Romans 1:18ff and Ephesians 4:17ff, Paul describes the depravity of non-Christian Gentiles. To think that Jews are intrinsically worse than other sinners, or Gentiles less depraved than Jews, is to lie about reality and pervert the grace of the gospel. We have nothing but what we have been freely given. Unless we Gentiles want to be held responsible for the perversions of our ancestors from 2000 years ago, like idolatry and sodomy, we dare not hold today’s Jews responsible for the historical act of crucifying Jesus 2000 years ago. Our posture towards all unbelievers, individually and corporately, should be to pray and work for their salvation.
Ways that Christians have boasted against the broken out branches” include expressions of hatred against individual Jews because of what their ancestors did (a form of identity politics); or, rejecting the Old Testament because it is Jewish (the Marcionite heresy); or denying that Jesus himself was a Jew (an utterly unhistorical and unbiblical position); or denying that Jews can ever be saved and so refusing to evangelize them (despite the fact that Paul says the broken out branches can be grafted back in); and so on.
But we should note that just as charges of “racism” and “abuse” are so inflated today that real victims get lost amidst false accusations, so it is with anti-Semitism. There is such a thing as anti-Semitism – hating ethnic Jews just because they are Jews. But charges of anti-Semitism get thrown around very carelessly today. It is not anti-Semitic to acknowledge the role first century Jews played in crucifying Jesus. It is not anti-Semitic to say Jews are unsaved unless they trust in Jesus. It is not anti-Semitic to question or criticize the modern nation-state of Israel, and its secular, progressive policies, its wars, and how these wars are fought. It is not anti-Semitic to question America’s “special” relationship with Israel, the billions our nation has given them in foreign aid over the years, the way we have prosecuted military campaigns on Israel’s behalf, or the influence Israeli special interests have on American politicians. It is not anti-Semitic to notice ways in which secular, progressive Jews have joined with other progressives in undermining Christian civilization (Christendom) in the West. It is not anti-Semitic to note the role Jews played in the Bolshevik Revolution or the rise of Cultural Marxism. It is not anti-Semitic to say that we should view the modern nation-state of Israel the same way we view other nations, and thus should make pragmatic, prudential decisions about how to relate to it. It is not anti-Semitic to say Christians are not obligated to stand with modern Israel because modern Israel does not stand with Christ. And so on. We must fair and honest in how we deal with both history and current events.
Now we turn to Gerald McDermott’s response to my article in The Federalist. McDermott is another scholar who has written some things I have enjoyed, but I think he misses some key points on this topic. The easiest way to interact with McDermott’s essay is conversation-style, quoting from bits of it and providing counterpoints.
It should be noted that McDermott distances his position from Dispensationalism, while also rejecting the “fulfillment theology” of covenant theologians. His position overlaps with mine a bit, but he also misses some critical points.
McDermott writes,
“Fulfillment theology teaches that the church is “the new and true Israel,” yet the New Testament never once says this. Those who subscribe to fulfillment theology say “the Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16 refers to the Gentile church, but its contextual referent is Jews who accept Jesus as Messiah.”
It is simply impossible that the “Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16 refers to Jews, distinct from Gentiles, who accept Jesus as Messiah. If it did, it would overthrow the entire thrust of the latter of Galatians, which is to argue that Jewish believers and Gentile believers are now one in Christ Jesus. Paul summarizes the theological argument of the letter in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” There is one Israel of God – and it includes both Jews and Gentiles who trust in Jesus.
The entire letter of Galatians is about this oneness. In chapter 2, Paul recounts how he had to confront Peter to his face because Peter withdrew from table fellowship with Gentile believers and only ate with Jewish believers. Paul considers this a denial of the gospel, precisely because the gospel is all about making Jew and Gentile one in Christ. When Peter divided the body of Christ and the table of Christ along ethnic lines, he was rebuilding the very wall of division Christ died to tear down (Galatians 2:18). Insofar as the law divided Jew from Gentile, it has now been abolished. In the new community of the church, there is to be no Jew/Gentile divide. If Jews who believe in Christ are still separated from Gentiles who believe in Christ, Christ died in vain.
As Paul continues his argument into chapter 3, we find that this gospel of Gentile inclusion was “pre-preached” to Abraham (Galatians 3:8). God’s plan all along was to form one worldwide family of sinners saved by grace, drawn from every tongue and tribe, sharing in the blessing God promised Abraham (Galatians 3:7, 9). Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus share the same status (that’s the point of justification by faith apart from works of the law) and share in the same gift of the Spirit (as the Galatians’ experience manifested). All who believe in Jesus, whether of Jewish or Gentile ethnicity, are sons of Abraham, members of the same family.
Christ died under the curse of the law precisely so that “the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles” (Galatians 3:13-14). To insist that Gentiles come under the law or submit to circumcision in order to become children of Abraham (or the Israel of God) misunderstands both the Abrahamic promise and the Mosaic law. The law (= Mosaic administration) was added after the promise and was only in force until Christ. God promised Abraham a singular seed – and that singular seed is not just Jesus, but those who are in union with Jesus by faith, whether Jew or Gentile. That family is now being formed by the work of the Spirit. There is one God and he has one people, one family, one Israel, composed of believers from every family and nation. Galatians 3:26-29 is the theological core of the letter:
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
The whole point is that Gentiles do not need to become Israelites (in the sense of being circumcised) in order to be saved; they have already become true Israelites without being circumsices simply by trusting the in the Son of Abraham, Jesus Christ. In the new covenant, membership in Israel is open to Gentiles as Gentiles. We are all sons of Abraham (= members of Israel) by faith in Christ and baptism into Christ. Further, we are all heirs of the exact same promises. There are no promises given to Jewish Christians that are not also given to Gentile Christians, or vice versa. We have the same blessings, the same salvation, the same redemption, the same righteousness, the same baptism, the same Spirit, the same covenant membership, the same sonship, the same family inheritance. That’s the whole point. Anything that violates that oneness that is a departure from Paul’s gospel.
In chapter 4 and into chapter 5, Paul tells the Galatians that if they think they have to become Jews in order to become Christians, if they think they have to be circumcised or keep the Jewish calendar and dietary laws in order to become the Israel of God, they might as well go back to their former paganism (Galatians 4:8-11). They are returning to bondage when they should live in freedom; they are Isaacs, children of Sara, so they should not live like Ishmaels, children of Hagar. The belong to the Jerusalem that is above (Galatians 4:21-5:6). Paul could not be more emphatic: circumcision avails for nothing (Galatians 5:6). It brings to special or additional promises the Gentile Galatian Christians do not already have by simply trusting in Jesus. In other words, there are no special benefits only given to Jews in the new creation. Paul is being persecuted by unbelieving Jews precisely because he claims that Gentile Christians are full members of Abraham’s family/Israel without circumcision (Galatians 5:11-12). Battles over circumcision within the community are leading them to bite and devour one another when they should be walking in the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit. They should be fighting the against the flesh by the power of the Spirit rather than reveling in the fleshly badge of circumcision (Galatians 5:16-24).
With all of that in view, to think Paul would get to the end of this letter about the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers, only to undo it all in 6:16 is simply absurd. To say, “You Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ, sharing one baptism, communion table, one faith, one inheritance, one family – but now I am going to wish for peace only upon the Jewish believers because they have something you Gentiles don’t have” would make Paul guilty of the very same error he has been combating throughout the whole epistle. It would be repeating the very error over which Paul confronted Peter in Galatians 2. Again, the whole point of Galatians taken in its entirety, like Romans 4 (where Paul says Abraham is the father of both circumcised and uncircumcised believers) and Ephesians 2 (where Paul says that Gentile Christians are now citizens of Israel), is to show there is one family of Abraham, with both Jewish and Gentile children in it. All Christians are children of Abraham, which means we are all the Israel of God.
Galatians 6:16 is a fitting conclusion to the letter: just as Paul began the letter with the threat of a curse, a malediction, so he ends the letter with a promise of blessing, a benediction. But since Paul does not know if the Galatians will heed the warnings in this letter, he has to formulate his blessing in conditional terms, using a similar grammatical construction to the one used in 5:25: he says “as many as walk according to this rule…” will be the recipients of peace and mercy.
Further, it is likely that in 6:16 Paul is echoing a familiar Jewish blessing, “The Blessing of Peace” from Shemoneh Esreh, used in synagogues, but now repurposed for the use in the church: “Bestow peace, happiness, blessing, grace, and loving-kindness, and mercy upon us and upon all Israel, your people.” In this benediction, the “us” is not a group distinct from “all Israel,” but a subset of “all Israel.” The “us” is the locally gathered people; “all Israel” is the entire covenant community. So it is here. We can paraphrase Paul’s benediction this way:
“And as many as walk according to this rule that circumcision and uncircumcision do not count for anything in the new creation, may peace and mercy be upon them in your community, and upon the whole Israel of God of which you are all a part.”
McDermott provides no argument for his exegesis of Galatians 6:16. He makes no effort to show it might fit into the flow and argument of the book (which would be impossible). He just makes an assumption – an assumption that is totally at odds with Paul’s sustained argument. He adds some parenthetical wording to show how he understands Galatians 6:16, but he does not explain why he exegetes the text in a way that distinguishes Jewish believers from Gentile believers when tearing down any such distinction has been the whole burden of the letter. Paul is very clear: in the new creation, what matters is the cross of Christ. We are to boast in the cross of Christ, not ethnic identity. It could not be any clearer: the Israel of God is all who are in Christ Jesus. The Israel of God is all who follow the rule of the new creation, namely, that circumcision (which signified the Jew/Gentile divide) no longer matters. All who belong to the household of faith (6:10), all who are baptized (3:27), and all who trust in Christ (3:29) belong to the singular seed of Abraham (3:16).
McDermott then argues that “fulfillment theology” denies Jesus’ claim that,
“every stroke of the pen in Torah and the Prophets was God-given (Matthew 5:17-18), for Torah teaches that Israel is God’s “firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22), and both Torah and the prophets predict a worldwide return to the land when it will be more prosperous and numerous than that of the fathers (Deuteronomy 30:4-5; Ezekiel 36:24-25; 37:11-14). Jeremiah prophesied that as long as the sun, moon, and stars are in the sky, the offspring of Israel will never cease being a nation before God (Jeremiah 31:35-36).”
But this simply misunderstands both “fulfillment theology” and the way in which Jesus brings the OT to fulfillment. Space does not allow a complete treatment of this topic of “fulfillment,” but I would point interested readers to Vern Poythress’ The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, Christopher J. H. Wright’s Jesus and the Old Testament, David Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel, and James B. Jordan’s Through New Eyes, to gain a more complete understanding. I’ll just point out a couple of problems with McDermott’s claims here.
Yes, the prophets predicted a return of Israel to the land. But this already happened. Israel went into exile, the northern tribes in 722BC and the southern tribes in 586BC, and then many returned from exile in 516BC. That pattern, of course, is recapitulated in Christ – he goes into exile when he is crucified, but in doing so gathers his people to himself. This gathering of believers, Jew and Gentile, to Christ, is the ultimate and final exodus.
Yes, God said Israel would never cease to be a nation before him – and Israel has not ceased to exist. As we have just seen, the church is the continuation of Israel, albeit in a transformed way. Old covenant Israel and the new covenant church are just two historical phases of one people. The old covenant and new covenant are chapters within a single unfolding story. The church is the Israel of God. Israel has been expanded to include Gentiles and Jewish badges of identity like circumcision no longer carry covenantal significance in the new creation, but Israel most certainly still exists as the people of God.
From there, McDermott asks a question:
“But if Jesus regarded Pharisees as children of the devil, why did He exhort His disciples to “teach and protect whatever the Pharisees tell you” (Matthew 23:3)?”
This is simple: Theologically, the Pharisees got many things right and they had legitimate offices in the visible church of their day. But in that same chapter, Jesus goes on to pronounce a series of woes/curse on the Pharisees and Saducees because they have rejected him.
“Fulfillment theology also regards today’s Judaism, as Pastor Lusk puts it, as “an idolatrous faith” and a “returning to paganism” because it does not accept Jesus as Messiah. But this approach is light years from that of the apostle Paul, who said of his fellow Jews who had not seen Jesus yet, that they “are [present tense] beloved by God because of the Fathers [the patriarchs].” And their “calling” as God’s chosen people is “irrevocable” (Romans 11:28-29).””
Here, McDermott is dangerously wrong. Paul anguished over his unbelieving Jewish kinfolk precisely because they are under God’s curse. Paul wishes he could bear this curse for them before, as things stand, they are condemned to hell (Romans 9:3-4). There is no salvation is Judaism, any more than Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism, or any other religion that rejects Jesus as the God-man who saves us through his death and resurrection. Anyone denying that Jesus is the promised Messiah, or that he has come in the flesh to be our Savior, partakes of the spirit of Antichrist.
In rejecting the Son, Jews also rejected the Father (1 John 2:23). They do not worship the same God as Christians. They are now, as Paul says in Romans 11, covenant breakers. They are branches broken out of the covenant tree. So, yes, they are no better than pagans in that sense. Paul says they are beloved for the sake of their fathers, which means they will someday be grafted back in to the tree. God is not finished with the physical/ethnic descendants of Abraham. God will convert them to faith in Christ and bring them into the church. But in the meantime, Scripture is very clear that Jews are in no different position than any other unbelievers. When natural branches are broken off the tree, they are not spared from judgment – a judgment that befalls all who reject the gospel, whatever their ethnicity.
As a postmillennialist, I believe the Great Commission will be fulfilled before Jesus returns. All nations will be converted (cf. Psalm 22:27-28). This obviously includes the Jews, with one caveat Paul gives in Romans 11:25: the Jews will come in after the “fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (that is, the widespread conversion of Gentile nations). The last shall be first: The first nation to be in covenant with God in the old world will be the last nation to come into covenant with God in the new world.
But McDermott speaks as if Jews in general enjoy a right to all the covenant blessings, right now, simply by being Jewish, despite their unbelief. To be frank, this is “light years” from what Paul actually says about their condition. Israel never had an unconditional right to the land of promise even in the old covenant (which is why they got exiled).
McDermott continues:
“The New Testament repeats the land promise three times. The author of Hebrews says God led Abraham to a place to receive as an inheritance, and that Isaac and Jacob were heirs with him of the same promise (Hebrews 11:9). Before his martyrdom, deacon Stephen said God promised to give Abraham this land as a possession and to his offspring after him (Acts 7:4-5). Paul tells the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia that the God of this people Israel chose our fathers, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance (Acts 13:17-19).”
None of this has any bearing on the modern nation of Israel. The references to the land promise in the NT all refer back to the old covenant situation; they recount OT history. The land promise was already fulfilled in the old covenant. Abraham’s descendants took possession of the land under Joshua; they were exiled from that land because of their sin; they returned to that land, rebuilt the temple, and numerous Jews were dwelling there when the NT was being written. McDermott makes no argument for this continuing to be a standing promise for ethnic Jews after the advent of the new covenant. McDermott cites the land promise in Hebrews 11:9 but fails to note that what. Abraham ultimately looked for was much more the land. Hebrews 11:10 says, “he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” In Hebrews 12, this city is defined as the new covenant church:
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”
McDermott suggests the the modern return of Jews to the land is a fulfillment of prophecy:
“The massive return of Jews to the land beginning in the 19th century was a fulfillment of prophecies in the Septuagint (the Bible for the early church) that one day there would be an apokatastasis, a return to the land by Jews from the four corners of the earth (Jeremiah 16:15; 24:6; 50:19; Hosea 11:11).
Was this referring to the return after exile in Babylon? Not for the apostle Peter. In his second speech in Jerusalem, after Jesus’ resurrection, he says the apokatastasis is still to come (Acts 3:21). In other words, the resurrection did not fulfill all the biblical prophecies, and sometime in the future there would be a worldwide return to the land.”
This is simply false. Any prophesied restoration of Israel would not happen apart from their conversion to faith in Jesus. My article addressed this point clearly, but I have also addressed it at greater length elsewhere (https://tpcpastorspage.com/2026/02/23/does-modern-day-israel-have-right-to-the-land/).
To say that Jews have some “extra” promise of a special land that Gentile believers do not share in violates Paul’s claim in 2 Corinthians 1:20: “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him.” ALL God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ. If Gentile believers are in Christ, they have ALL the promises. There are no promises found outside of Christ – thus, unbelieving Jews, who are outside of Christ, cannot claim a divine promise to the land or anything else, and believing Jews have no promises that believing Gentiles do not also get. If you want Abrahamic blessings, you must have Abrahamic faith. And if you do have faith in Jesus, Paul says “all things are yours” — including the land of Palestine (1 Corinthians 3:21ff).
As for Acts 3:21, “the restoration of all things” promised by the prophets was already happening in Peter’s day, as the gospel began to spread to the nations. In Acts 3:24, Peter says all the prophets, from Samuel onward, “foretold these days.” Whatever glorious time of restoration/refreshment the prophets promised, those promises do not come to fulfillment in a future millennium (as premillennialists claim) nor in the future resurrection state (as amillennialists claims), but they are coming to fulfillment in “these days,” in this present age we are living in right now (as postmillennialists claim). Of course, the fullness of that restoration will happen at Jesus’ final coming, but the restoration is present and growing right now. The prophets did not merely predict Israel’s future; they prophesied about the global expansion of the kingdom of God to all nations, which is taking place as the Great Commission is fulfilled. We know this is true because Peter summarizes the message of the prophets in Acts 3:25, when he quotes Genesis 12:3: “In your Seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
We must also consider the ways in which the NT transforms our understanding of the land promises in the new creation. Just as Israel has been expanded to include Gentiles, so the land promises have been enlarged to include the whole earth. For example, compare Psalm 37:11 to Matthew 5:5 – Jesus says the meek will now inherit not just a small strip of land in Palestine, but the whole earth. Or look at Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:1-2 — Paul has taken an old covenant promise connected to the land of Canaan and applied to Gentile children living in Ephesus. Or consider Romans 4:13, which tells us what God really promised to Abraham was not just a tiny bit of land in the Middle East but the whole world. The promised land itself was a type and shadow, a down payment pointing to greater things that would come in the new covenant.
McDermott shows he does not really understand “fulfillment theology” when he writes,
“Calvin and Luther were wrong to assume that every Old Testament prophecy was about the future Gentile church. There were too many prophecies that clearly were Israel- and Jewish-specific.”
McDermott is confusing “fulfillment theology” with “replacement theology.” If the church replaced Israel then we’d have to ask, “How are prophecies made to and about Israel fulfilled?” If God promises to give a certain people a certain gift, but then gives that gift to another people, that would be a problem. If I promise one of my children a bicycle, but give a bicycle to a different child, the child who received the original promise would have grounds to complain. But this is not what has happened. If the church IS Israel in new covenant form (even as Israel was the church in old covenant form), then there is no problem seeing the OT prophecies come to fulfillment in the Jew/Gentile church. If the church IS Israel, and Christians are true Jews, then Israel-specific and Jewish-specific prophecies MUST come to fulfillment in the church. There is no other place they can be fulfilled. And of course, many of those prophecies foretold exactly what we see happening in the NT as the church carries out her mission, e.g., Isaiah 2:3, which shows Gentiles streaming into house of God.
McDermott makes the claim that “fulfillment theology” fails to do justice to the fact that all Christian Zionists are Dispensationalists. Actually, I do not agree with his point here, though it’s not really a criticism of my essay. There are many Zionists who are not Christian – they are secular Zionists. And there are certainly some Christian Zionists who are not Dispensationalists. But to be fair, by far the most prominent form of Christian Zionism in modern America is most certainly the Dispensational variety, so it is not surprising that most contemporary discussions of Christian Zionism focus on Dispensationalism. And historically, non-Dispensational Christian Zionists did not think Israel could have any right to the promised land apart from faith and repentance. Reformed theologian David Brown is a good example. In 1882, he wrote,
“As their sins were the cause, and their dispersion the effect, so their conversion, removing the cause of their present dispersion, shall be accompanied by their return, under the divine favor, to their father-land. The covenant-favor and the covenant-land go hand in hand.”
Brown (and others like him) argued a Jewish claim to the land could never be separated from faith in the God who promised it to them. In other words, their return to the land was never contemplated apart from the conversion of the Jews to Christ and entrance into the church. They envisioned the Jews as a Christian people dwelling in a Christianized Canaan. That’s obviously not the case at present. By contrast, many modern Christian Zionists believe Israel can lay claim to a promised land without trusting in the God who made the promise.
Some might consider me a kind of covenantal Zionist because I do not object to the nation of Israel as such existing. The modern day nation-state of Israel is not different from any other nation in this respect. Their land was gained in the same way virtually all nations gain their land – a mix of gift, purchase, and conquest. I believe the modern-day nation of Israel has the same right to defend itself that other nations have. There is no unique divine right to the land, no unique theological claim to the land, but they are there, and can stay there, same as any other nation can stay in its land, defending it as is needed.
McDermott says his Christian Zionist system has nothing to do with Dispensationalism, but I’m not convinced. Sure, McDermott rejects many of the elaborate and novel features of Dispensational eschatology, like the rapture. But if the whole point of the gospel is oneness – the formation of one family of Abraham – then McDermott has a problem. The key hallmark of Dispensationalism from the beginning was its separation of Israel and the church – God has two peoples, an earthly people with land promises (Jews/Israel), and a spiritual people with heavenly promises (Gentiles/the church). McDermott basically operates with Dispensationalism’s “twoness” paradigm rather than covenant theology’s “oneness” paradigm. But Scripture clearly teaches the oneness paradigm: There is one covenant tree; Jesus has one bride and one body; Abraham has one worldwide blessed family; there is one baptism, one table of the Lord, one common faith, one promised inheritance.
Oddly, at the end of his article, McDermott backs off what would seem to be the clear implications of his position and offers some pretty diluted recommendations:
“Does this mean the state of Israel is a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy, as Cruz suggested? No. Nor does it mean Christians must ratify every policy of the Israeli government. But the last two centuries have shown that God’s covenanted people need a state to protect them from those who would destroy them. And Gentile Jesus-believers who believe God redeems by grace and not works — and superintends the history of redemption by His sovereign decree and not human performance — should not despise the people from whom our Savior and salvation have come (John 4:22; Romans 9:5).”
There is nothing here covenant theology/fulfillment theology would take issue with: The modern state of Israel does not fulfill biblical prophecy (which is just the claim my original paper made — though this seems to stand in tension with McDermott’s earlier claim from the Septuagint). Christians do not have to give unconditional support to the modern nation-state of Israel (which makes sense, since even in the old covenant, Israel was often criticized in scathing ways by the prophets for her sins). Apparently as a pragmatic matter (not a theological conviction?), history over the last two centuries has shown the Jews need a land of their own for the sake of survival (is there any reason why it has to be the land of Canaan or could it be in another location?). Gentile Christians should not be arrogant towards unbelieving Jews since we belong to the very Israel they have been severed from, and if we are arrogant, we can be cut off the tree as well. All well and good – but there are no criticisms of my views here or those of most “fulfillment theologians.”
How then should we think of modern day unbelieving Jews and the nation-state of Israel? When Gentiles turn to faith in Christ, they get Israelitized; Jews who reject Christ have been Gentilized. That is to say, the promises and prophecies concerning Israel belong to the Christian church. Jews who reject Jesus are no different than other non-Christian Gentiles. In the new creation, the only division that ultimately matters is the Christian/non-Christian distinction. The Jew/Gentile divide is no longer part of God’s covenantal purposes; it has expired with the entire old covenant system of which it was a part.
Assessing the modern nation of Israel requires us to know something about that nation’s character. Should Christians in America pledge unconditional support to a nation that adopts all the worst features of Western progressivism; that promotes the LGBTQ agenda; that has taxpayer-funded abortions; that is not exactly friendly to Christian evangelism; and so on? If that nation were not named “Israel,” virtually all Christians would agree, “No, we should not give unconditional support to that nation.”
This is not to say America should be hostile to modern Israel. At times, our interests might align with Israeli interests. But the theological arguments that are offered in favor of treating Israel as our “closest ally” with whom we must maintain a “special” relationship at all costs are simply wrong. We should assess our foreign policy towards Israel the same way we would any other nation in the world.
A final caveat: This does not mean we should side with Hamas or with the Muslims in the Middle East. Some people think of the conflict in the Middle East like an athletic contest, where we have to pick a team to cheer for. But it’s not so. Islam is not compatible with the historic Christian civilization of the West. It is hostile to the traditional Christian and American way of life. Just as we do not owe the Israeli nation any special favors, neither do we owe any Islamic regime in the Middle East any special favors. The priority of the American government should be the American people. And if America wants the blessing of God, per Genesis 12:3, we should bless the worldwide family of Abraham, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A link to my sermon on Israel from 1/25/26: https://trinity-pres.net/audio/Sunday%20Sermon.%20Jan%201%202026.%20Israel.%20Rich%20Lusk.mp3
Audio of my interview with Rightside Media on Israel from 1/26/26:
TPC Pastor's Page 