C.S. LEWIS & THE CONTROVERSY OF ZION
Recently, someone asked me to teach a Bible class at their congregation but requested I avoid mentioning “all the Israel stuff.” They explained the mention of Israel might offend congregants who were tracking the conflict in Israel and Gaza. They also reminded me that we could preach Jesus without talking about God’s covenants or His plans and purposes for Israel.
I was frankly a bit stunned in the moment and consequently fumbled an opportunity to bear witness to the biblical importance of “all the Israel stuff.” However, after replaying the conversation numerous times in the shower the last few weeks, I think I finally know how I should have responded.
Asking someone to teach the Bible without mentioning Israel is a bit like asking a professor to teach the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe without mentioning Narnia.
The setting of the story is, of course, integral to the story. In fact, I don’t even have to teach the significance of setting to my high school students. They’ve understood it since elementary school.
Authors intentionally choose the location and context they believe will best illuminate the message, the characters, and the plot of the story they’re trying to share. The primary setting of the Bible is Israel. The covenants and the prophecies leading up to the life of Christ are anchored to events concerning Israel. Most importantly, the entire life and ministry of Jesus occurs in Israel and even many prophecies about His return are tied to actual geographical locations in Israel.[1] In order to accurately teach the Gospels and most of the apostolic letters, a pastor has to consider how a first-century Jewish audience in Israel would have heard the message.
My friend was essentially asking me to teach the character and nature of Aslan, but only talk about the part where the Pevensie kids were in the London. London is more relatable and less offensive to their congregants, and, after all, you can explain who Aslan is and what he has done for the Pevensie kids if you just stick to the stories where the kids are in England.
In some ways, they’re right. You can proclaim the basic character and nature of Jesus, and you can preach an eternity-altering Gospel, even if you leave out “all the Israel stuff.” Our Father knows our frame[2], and He’s made this message necessarily foolproof. However, if you want to move on from elementary things[3], and actually know Jesus intimately— as the Spirit has revealed Him in the Scriptures—you have to reckon with the setting the Author chose for the story…and the land the Father chose for His Son’s ministry and reign.[4]
A blatant accusation against God inherent in the request to avoid the topic of Israel is that, somehow, the Father’s actions and purposes regarding Israel rob glory from His Son or distract from the Gospel and His plan of salvation. This could not be further from the truth. Truly biblical teaching on Israel does not distract from the Gospel nor steal glory from the Son. The Scriptures taught in their proper setting exalt Jesus. In fact, perhaps nothing reveals the preeminence of Jesus more than the plan of salvation the Father has orchestrated through the lineage of Abraham.
One reason people don’t want to preach Israel is because they don’t want to remind a Gentile audience that we weren’t originally chosen. For a Gentile to reckon with the plan of salvation, we have to accept that we were grafted in at the eleventh hour. I’m personally positive that, if Messiah had not come two thousand years ago, I’d be in the woods right now performing some pagan dance to worship a statue I made with my own hands. The truth is: the good news for the nations is rather bad news for our egos.
And, of course, it is. The Father is entirely uninterested in catering to our flesh and entirely committed to exalting His Son. This, however, is true for all flesh–both Jew and Gentile.
Have you ever considered how difficult the plan of salvation is to reckon with for the Jewish people? How would you feel if it were your people and your ancestors bearing up under the rage of the nations and the weight of the covenants for centuries– until the day God opened the door for the same nations to be grafted in without keeping any of the regulations that burdened your ancestors?
It’s hard to fully appreciate the utter humility and mercy the apostles demonstrated at the Jerusalem Council. Led by the Spirit, they reduced 613 laws to just 3 for the Gentiles to keep.[5] When some within the council protested at how absolutely unfair this was, Peter responded:
Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?[6]
Much could be said about the gratitude we owe our older brother for such a generous acceptance to the Father’s house.[7] However, much more could be said about how God’s masterful plan to save every nation, through the Seed of one nation, ultimately exalts only One Man.
In fact, one of the most glorious parts of the plan of salvation is the way it utterly lays low the arrogance of man. Neither the elect among the Gentiles[8], nor the faithful remnant of the chosen people[9], will have anything left to boast in when Messiah is revealed. Not one was found worthy but the Lion of Judah, this Lamb who was slain[10]. Surely, we have all erred and fallen short of the glory of God.[11]
Paul spends the first eleven chapters of Romans carefully detailing the wisdom of God in orchestrating the plan of salvation. It’s the revelation of God’s wisdom—from covenants to Calvary—that causes Paul to burst into praise as his epistle crescendos:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and How inscrutable his ways!...For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever.[12]
Before his masterful letter to the Romans, Paul wrote about the wisdom of God in his letter to the Corinthians,
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.[13]
That’s why I will always faithfully preach “all the Israel stuff.” If my aim is to bear faithful witness to the glory of the Gospel and the glory of the Son of Man, then I should start the story where the Father started the story. Who am I to diminish the wisdom of God or obscure the “folly” of the cross?
Scripture says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding banquet a King prepared for His Son.[14] Psalm 2 records the conversation of a Father promising His Son all the nations as His inheritance.[15] In the best way possible, the ultimate rescue, reconciliation, and redemption of humanity says absolutely nothing about us. However, it says everything about the Son. In that Day, every accolade and every idol will be brought low. Jesus alone will be exalted. Maranatha.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How does the article challenge or expand your understanding of God’s plan of salvation—particularly regarding Israel, the nations, and the preeminence of Jesus?
What practical changes could you make in your teaching, Bible reading, or conversations to present God’s plan of salvation in its full historical and biblical context?
In your context, what does it look like to faithfully preach “all the Israel stuff” in a way that properly exalts Jesus?
[1] See Isaiah 24:23; Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 24:15-16; Acts 1:11
[2] See Psalm 103:14
[3] See Hebrews 6:1
[4] See Psalm 2:6; Psalm 110:2; Jeremiah 3:17; Zechariah 14:16
[5] See Acts 15:19-20
[6] Acts 15:10 ESV
[7] See Luke 15:11-32
[8] See Romans 8:29; Ephesians 1:4-5
[9] See Romans 11:5
[10] See Revelation 5:4-5
[11] See Romans 3:23
[12] Romans 11:33, 36 ESV
[13] 1 Corinthians 1:21-23; 28-29 ESV
[14] See Matthew 22:2
[15] See Psalm 2:7-8
Grayson Borders is a Tennessee-based high school teacher and a member of the Editorial & Advisory Panel for THE EMMAUS TABLE. She serves on a ministry team dedicated to supporting laborers serving in the Middle East and Muslim world.