Understanding Conflict in the Middle East–Part One
Why do the Israelis and Palestinians place so much attention on having a homeland in the geographic region that was anciently known as Canaan? Will there ever be an end to the conflicts and political tensions in this region between the Israelis and the Arab world? Israel’s mandated presence in the Middle East, particularly in the region associated with ancient Canaan, was affirmed by the Apostle Paul who explained in an allegory that a new national covenant will someday be mediated by Jesus for the twelve tribes of Israel. Making it certain from the biblical perspective that the modern-day Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, and many other nations and peoples, will continue to have a concerned interest in the issues affecting the geopolitical stability of the Middle East. Prompting us then to review the nature and foreseeable consequences of the promises afforded to a man called Abraham. Now, it was told to Abraham that in “Isaac shall they seed be called,” which meant that among the children of Abraham there would be only one lineage associated with the promises that included a landed inheritance in the region of ancient Canaan. Noting that the Apostle Paul reiterated this fact when he referred to the one “seed”—Isaac (lineally)—whose descendants would receive the landed inheritance promised to Abraham. And so we find by the nature of God’s promise that Isaac’s son Jacob and Jacob’s descendants (Israel) would eventually become the designated recipients of a landed inheritance in the land of Canaan, which took root in a national sense a number of years after their journeys out of Egypt (Gen. 15:7; 28:13; Deut. 34:4). Notably, when the time approached for the people of ancient Israel to inherit the land, we see that God established a covenant with them at the mount in Sinai, and this covenant was grounded upon certain stipulations—the Ten Commandments—and these commandments created an uncompromising issue in regard to the promises. Because it was obvious to the people of ancient Israel and to their descendants—and to us today—that it is impossible to unfailingly keep the Ten Commandments. Yet, these same commandments were requisite to retaining the inheritance from one generation to another. Consequently, these “commandments,” respective to the first covenant, came to be seen as an opposition to the inheritance because the Ten Commandments only served to prove that the people of ancient Israel were unworthy inheritors of the Land of Promise. But it was not the commandments that actually stood in the way of the promises, as some Christians have come to believe, but rather it was the sin that the commandments revealed that jeopardized their inheritance in the land of Canaan. A situation that prompted the Apostle Paul to address how the nature of these commandments, and there covenantal appropriation at the mount in Sinai, were still not able to nullify the fulfillment of the promises even though the fault was revealed in the people by these commandments of God (I Chr. 28:2-3; 6-8; Jn. 8:39). Thus, the Apostle Paul said that: “as a man I say it, even of man a confirmed covenant no one doth make void or doth add to, and to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed; He doth not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to thy seed,’ which is Christ; and this I say, A covenant confirmed before by God to Christ, the law, that came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not set aside, to make void the promise, for if by law be the inheritance, it is no more by promise, but to Abraham through promise did God grant it” (Gal. 3:15-18, YLT). [Author’s emphasis throughout.] Meaning that the peoples of Israel were given the land by reason of the promise made to Abraham, but the ability to possess and inherit the land generationally was made conditional on their obedience to the Ten Commandments and not the jurisprudence of Moses. Simply, Paul is telling us that the first covenant and its ritual laws and its stipulations—the Ten Commandments—became binding in a “national” agreement that was mediated by Moses for the people of ancient Israel. And even though the people broke the covenant–as per the foundational stipulations–and were forced to eventually forfeit their inheritance in the land of Canaan, the Apostle Paul assures us that the “stipulations” could not “set aside” the promise of a landed inheritance for the people of ancient Israel and their descendants relative to Isaac. (It is an incorrect argument to say that Paul was not referring also to the Ten Commandments.) Implying then that the fulfillment of the covenant by promise for all the tribes of Israel would have to be brought forward to a time following a resurrection from the dead when a new national covenant would be mediated by Jesus at Jerusalem (I Tim. 2:5). Implying further that the Ten Commandments remain to bring a judgment against those who will be under the administration of the future new covenant, which will be ratified with all those who will be considered to be of the lineage of Isaac. A conclusion that is of course understood—in part—from the Apostle Paul’s rhetorical question when he asked: “Do we then make void the law through faith?” And Paul answered by saying: “God forbid: yea, we establish the law [by faith]” (Rom. 3:31). Affirming for us that the Apostle Paul unreservedly confirmed the continuance of the Ten Commandments in a coming new national covenant that will include the promise of the holy spirit, and the gift of immortal life for those qualified by God to be worthy inheritors of the kingdom of God (Gal. 3:8-9). That is to say that by means of the sacrifice of Christ and by the indwelling of the spirit of God all who are willing can be qualified by God the Father to become worthy inheritors of the kingdom of his son, Jesus. (Reconciliation with God would be by necessity defined in the context of