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 called Palestine? Will there ever be an end to the conflicts and political tensions between the Israelis and the Arab world? Israel’s continuing presence in the Middle East, particularly in the region of Palestine, was affirmed by the Apostle Paul who explained in an allegory that a new national covenant will someday be mediated by Christ for the twelve tribes of Israel at Jerusalem. Making it certain then 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. 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 Palestine. And 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 God’s promise that Isaac’s son Jacob and Jacob’s descendants (Israel) eventually became the qualified recipients of a landed inheritance in Palestine some years after their journeys out of Egypt (Gen. 15:7; 28:13; Deut. 34:4). However, when the time came for the people of ancient Israel to inherit the land of Palestine, we see that God established a covenant with them at Mt. Sinai, and this covenant was founded 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. Therefore, 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. A situation that prompted the Apostle Paul to address the issue of how these commandments, and there covenantal introduction at Mt. Sinai, were still not able to nullify the fulfillment of the promises even though the fault was revealed in the people by the commandments of God. And so 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.] Simply, Paul is telling us that the 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 at Mt. Sinai. And even though the people of ancient Israel broke the covenant, and the foundational stipulations, and were forced to eventually forfeit their inheritance in Palestine, 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 the time after the 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 new covenant that 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 eternal 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 the Ten Commandments.) Giving us then the expectation that the new national covenant made with the twelve tribes of Israel would be ratified with the same stipulations that were in the first covenant—the Ten Commandments—for all those who are regarded as heirs of the promises like Isaac. Which brings us to examine Paul’s allegory as it relates to Sarah and Hagar, and also to Abraham’s two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Now Abraham had a firstborn son, Ishmael, by Sarah’s Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, which made Ishmael the heir to Abraham’s estate, but not a firstborn heir according to the promise of a landed inheritance because the promise was to the child born of Sarah (Gen. 17:19). Therefore when Isaac was born, he not only became the heir to Abraham’s estate—replacing Ishmael as the heir—he became the recipient of God’s promise of a landed inheritance that would include the modern-day region of Palestine. Giving