Dispensationalism and the Jews: Part IIby Jeffrey Gutterman
For the Jewish people in the Diaspora, daily prayers kept and still to this day keep the promises of God before their eyes and in their ears.
Jews continually read, Isaiah 43:5-7 "Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east,
And gather you from the west. 6 "I will say to the north, 'Give them up! ' And to the south, 'Do not hold them back. ' Bring My sons from afar And My daughters from the ends of the earth, 7 Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made."
While Jews were often nationalistic in nations where they were tolerated or embraced, these prayers never gave the Jewish person a feeling of permanence of citizenship in their adopted countries, since God had promised one day to bring ALL Jews back home. Additionally, the Gentile cultures were always hesitant to enfranchise the Jews. The Jews kept to themselves from internal causes as well as by external causes. Internally they fiercely held onto their Jewishness. Externally they were an unknown quantity to most cultures and thus they were feared and hated. This kept them distinctly separate from the cultures where they lived.
Geographically the Jewish people never disconnected with the land of Israel. The Land of Israel, or Palestine as the world refers to it, never was the birthplace of any nation other than Israel. All other nations that conquered the land of Israel had a homeland elsewhere. This helped to fuel the idea that the Jews fervently held, that this land was reserved for the people that God had promised it to-the Jewish people.
Starting in the 1880 's the majority of settlers to Israel came from Russia in Eastern Europe where Jews were still greatly oppressed. Russians made "aliyah" to Israel, a Hebrew word meaning "ascent" or "going up." In1881 Czar Alexander II was assassinated. The Jews were blamed for this. Alexander II 's successor, Alexander III, began a policy of Jewish repression that often resulted in riots or pogroms. In 1891 Moscow had a Jewish population of 35,000. In just a few years this had been reduced by expulsion to less than 5,000.
Whatever the leaders of a country felt about the Jews, they always experienced major negative changes in their societies by expelling Jews, even though they thought that ridding themselves of the Jews was a positive action. Just 25 years after this expulsion of Jews from Moscow, in 1917, Russia experienced a revolution, which toppled the monarchy and established a major communist state in the world. Jews had given their support and had cooperated with the secular authorities as long as they were treated fairly and protected from religious and economic repression. Jews were experiencing the rise of nationalism throughout Europe and saw monarchies overthrown along with their oppressive cultures of servitude.
A poignant illustration of this can be found in the contrasting philosophies of Chaim Weizmann, chemist, Zionist and future President of Israel; Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (1870-1924)), the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; and Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein, 1879-1940) the son of a Ukrainian Jewish farmer, who became Lenin 's second in command.
Weizmann felt much sympathy for the revolutionaries but saw that they had no tolerance for the Jews who expressed an attachment to the Jewish people separate from the Russian revolutionary goals. Weizmann could not understand why Lenin and Trotsky felt that a Russian Jew should not want to be anything other than Russian. If a Russian Jew stated a concern for the plight of Jews or a homeland for Jews, these men saw them as unworthy.
Let 's continue to examine the Dispensationalist Movement. Dispensationalism had spread throughout the U.S. mainly through the teachings of Cyrus Ingerson Scofield. He carried on the work that was begun by John Nelson Darby. As a result of the publishing of the Scofield Reference Bible, people were able to read dispensational notes right there with the Scripture verses. This Bible became extremely popular with Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in the U.S. C.I. Scofield took this further by writing, "Comparing then, what is said in Scripture concerning Israel and the Church, we find that in origin, calling, promise, worship, principles of conduct and future destiny, all is contrast." C. I. Scofield, Scofield Bible Correspondence Course, 19th edn. (Chicago, Moody Bible Institute), p. 23.,
Scofield believed that Israel was Israel and the church was the church. Two million copies of the Scofield Reference Bible were printed by 1945. In the 12 years between 1967 and 1979,one million more were printed.
In the 1890 's in Dallas, Texas, Scofield was the principal of the Southwestern School of the Bible, which in 1924, would become Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) under Lewis Sperry Chafer who had studied under Scofield. Obviously, Scofield 's influence was great. Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder of DTS, wrote, " The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity."
Samuel Kellogg (1839-1899) was a major influence on evangelicals between the Civil War and WW I. He influenced them to become premillennial where before they had been predominantly postmillennial. Kellogg saw the place that Israel had in the future Millennial Kingdom.
Leopold Cohn (1862-1937) came from Hungary to the U.S. as an ordained Rabbi, in 1892. Soon after arriving in the United States, he received Jesus as his Lord and Savior and founded The American Board of Missions to the Jews (ABMJ), which is now known as Chosen People Ministries. Cohn 's vision was to reach Jewish people in order to share the Gospel of Yeshua HaMoshiach, Jesus the Messiah. ABMJ provided English classes, sewing classes, and a medical clinic to many of the 2 million Jewish people who had come from Eastern Europe to the U.S. from 1880 to WW I. Hundreds of these Jewish immigrants came to know Jesus through Rabbi Cohn 's teachings. Today Chosen People Ministries in 11 countries (United States, Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom) and many cities in the U.S.
Jeffrey Gutterman, with his wife Ana, founded My Firstborn Son Ministries. This is a teaching ministry that exists to promote and sustain an inter-faith dialogue between Jewish and Christian people with an emphasis on the rich Jewish heritage of the Christian faith. |