But one of the fundamental problems with the dispensationalism of Hagee and Johnson is their supposition that there is a Biblical “admonition” to support the nation-state of Israel. There is no such requirement from the Bible, and it requires serious Scripture twisting to arrive at that conclusion. Ignoring the many passages of Scripture that identify the Israel of God, God’s chosen people, as those who are saved through faith in Jesus Christ alone, Hagee and Johnson would have you believe that ethnic Jews are God’s chosen people. This is a serious error.
Consider this passage, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Note Peter’s language “chosen generation,” “royal priesthood,” “holy nation,” [God’s] own special people.” Now ask yourself, about whom was Peter writing? Was he talking about ethnic Jews, or was he talking about believers in Christ Jesus? The context of this passage in 1 Peter demands that we understand him as writing about Christians.
It is not ethnic Jews who are blessed with believing Abraham, it is those who are of the faith of Abraham, Jew and Gentile alike. As Paul wrote, “[T]hose who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham” (Gal. 3:9).
In John, we read, “But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Note that the children of God, the true Israel, are born “not of blood.” One does not become God’s chosen people based on his ethnic heritage. God’s elect are born of the will of God. It is these people, born of God’s will, and these people only who have the right to become children of God, God’s chosen people, by believing in Christ Jesus.
In Ephesians, Paul wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world….” Note that God “chose us.” And who are these chosen people of whom Paul writes? Specifically, he was writing “To the saints who are in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus,” and more broadly, about Christians in general. If the saints in Ephesus were God’s chosen people, so too are his saints today, regardless of their nation.
All this is to say that “God’s chosen people” are not ethnic Jews, but Christians of all ethnicities. And if God’s chosen people are Christians, then it is a serious error to forceable take money from Americans, some of whom are Christians and among God’s elect, and give those funds to the nation-state of Israel based on the idea that ethnic Jews, the vast majority of whom do not believe in Jesus Christ, are God’s chosen people when they are not.
One could even argue that by taking money from Christians to “bless” unbelieving Jews in Israel, Mike Johnson and John Hagee are actually cursing the Israel of God, that is, the church, by forcing American Christians to bear the financial burdens of the secular nation-state of Israel. Properly speaking, such wealth transfers are theft, violating the eighth commandment and the U.S. Constitution. Further, this money transfer enables Israel’s people to continue in their militant and unbelieving Zionism rather than repenting and seeking the Lord in Jesus Christ, which is their only hope in this world and the next.
The program that the Christian Zionists are pursuing is a threat to the lives, not only of everyone in the Middle East, but to all Americans as well. One of the worst-kept secrets in international politics is that Israel has a large nuclear arsenal.1 If the Christian Zionist crowd gets their way, the world could be staring a large-scale nuclear war, much of the blame for which will fall on the shoulders of not just Christian Zionists, but Evangelicals and Protestants more generally. What a horrible reproach for the name of Christ that would be.
It is high time that American Evangelicals repented of their foolish, dangerous, murderous, and unbiblical Zionist ways and returned to the historicist eschatology of their Protestant forebears. Worth noting, while John Hagee and other Christian Zionists spend a great deal of time concerning themselves about Israel and the supposed coming rise of Antichrist in the Middle East, they fail to recognize the work that the very present Papal Antichrist is doing on the borders of their own country. May the Lord grant American Christians the discernment to see the error of their ways.
- This author has seen estimates putting Israel’s nuclear arsenal at up to 400 warheads. As part of its nuclear doctrine, Israel has what’s called the “Samson Option” which is pretty much what it sounds like. If Israel’s leaders believe the nation is about to be destroyed, the Samson Option allows them to launch their full nuclear arsenal, thus destroying all of their enemies in a nuclear holocaust. ↩︎
Lux Lucet 
Hey Steve,
Another interesting angel to all this is the Jesuit origins of Futurist Dispensational eschatology. In 1591, as part of the counter reformation, the Jesuit Francisco Ribera developed the theory that the Biblical prophecies of Daniel, Revelation, and the man of sin of 2 Thesselonians were all to come in the future. This was to combat the Protestant teaching that these were fulfilled, the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin of 2Thess, and the beast of Revelation 13 being the papacy.
The Jesuit Cardinal Bellemire picked up the teaching and then later Manuel Lacunza. Eventually it was picked up in England by the Oxford Movement and Protestants Edward Irving and John Darby. From there it was written into the Scofield Reference Bible and became the new standard Protestant eschatology replacing the historicist view.
https://bereanbeacon.org/the-dispensational-road/
This is a good article going through the history of this. There’s also a book download in the article called “the foundations under attack” which has a chapter on this subject.
Most Protestants have no idea that their eschatology has Roman Catholic origins. This has also paved the way for the return of Protestants back into communion with the church of Rome, as you talked about in your podcast, the pope has gone from Antichrist to brother in Christ.
Hi Zach. Thanks for your comments. You are correct about the Jesuit origins of the futurist school. I’ll check out the link you provided.