Recently a pastor friend of mine wrote to me about people in his congregation who were interpreting Revelation 20 in terms of the Israel-Iran war. Years ago I wrote about this issue when a similar situation arose in geopolitics. I visited Israel in 1965 when the West Bank was in Jordan and we had to use two different passports, one for Israel and one for other nations as Israel was not recognized by the Arab nations. Much has changed since then and especially in Iran which after the Islamic Revolution declared that it would destroy Israel and cut ties with the USA which it calls the Great Satan. The mullahs in Iran have reverted to totalitarian rule that oppresses its own citizens and like the neighboring Taliban particularly women. They are both enemies of democracy and Christianity. The book of Revelation has much to say about such regimes using the symbolic terms Babylon, false prophets and the beast as it did about the persecuting Roman Empire. Such prophecies may be fulfilled many times in history as empires and nations rise and fall. Jesus prophesied the fall of Jerusalem in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

Today there is a profitable market for prophecy and knowledge about the end times. Many preachers believe in an interpretation of the Bible that sees current events in the Middle East as the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Bible. They take the words of the Old Testament, and the book of Revelation, and interpret them as prophesying a coming conflict that will usher in the end of the world.

The Left Behind series of novels on the end-times by Tim LaHaye has sold more than 63 million copies. Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) believed that Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon fitted into a pattern of prophetic events beginning with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948; its subsequent wars, and the modern political realities and conflicts in the region. In an interview on CNN (August 9, 2008), he proclaimed his belief that God would defend and protect the state of Israel, and that the battle described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 maybe being fulfilled.

Basic to this conviction is the belief that the references to Israel in the Bible, can be applied directly to the political state of Israel today. Take Zechariah 12 for instance. Written around 520 B.C., both Haggai and Zechariah were encouraging the people of Israel, who were returning from exile in Babylon, to rebuild the Temple. Zechariah is also extensively quoted in the New Testament (seventy one times) for its Messianic prophecies. One third of these appear in the Gospels and thirty-one are found in the book of Revelation. Of all the Old Testament books, Zechariah is second only to Ezekiel in its influence on the book of Revelation. Its message was meant to strengthen the faith of the Jews as they faced opposition from the surrounding nations, by assuring them that God would protect them. “I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.” (12:9)

That prophecy was fulfilled during the sixth century when the Temple was rebuilt. There are many today who would apply the prophecy to the events of today, and identify the Jerusalem of then to the Jerusalem of today. They would say that Bible-believing Christians should support the state of Israel based on what the Old Testament prophesies. I do not want to be interpreted as being anti-Israel. We may support the state of Israel for many good reasons: the right to exist in peace, the right to self-defense, support for democracy and freedom, opposition to anti-Semitism. But I don’t think that biblical prophecy is a legitimate reason. I believe that references to Israel and Jerusalem in the Old Testament do not apply to the political, secular state of Israel today.

George Eldon Ladd, Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary states that Old Testament prophecies must be interpreted in the light of the New Testament. The New Testament applies Old Testament prophecies to the New Testament church and in so doing identifies the church as spiritual Israel. Abraham is called “the father of all who believe.” (Romans 4:11,16; Galatians 3:7,19). If Abraham is the father of a spiritual people, and if all believers are sons of Abraham, his offspring, then it follows that they are Israel, spiritually speaking.

This is what leads Paul to say, “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal.” (Romans 2:28,29) “For we are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:3) Paul applies prophecies to the church which in their Old Testament setting belong to literal Israel. He calls the church the sons, the seed of Abraham. He calls believers the true circumcision. It is difficult therefore to avoid the conclusion that Paul sees the church as the spiritual Israel.

Many Old Testament passages, which applied in their historical setting to literal Israel, have in the New Testament been applied to the church. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” (1 Peter 2:9)

Prophetic interpretation is loveless when it stridently asserts a literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophets, and then fits the New Testament into it. The apostolic writers of the New Testament received from Jesus that the promises of God no longer applied to the land of Israel, but to the kingdom of God that had no geographical boundaries, and was to be open to all people of all nations. The Promised Land was to be seen as the Jerusalem that is above, the Holy City of heaven, not an earthly city in the Middle East. That is the truths our hymns proclaim: Isaac Watts, “We’re marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God.” John Newton’s, “Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God.”