Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 180:718 (Apr 2023)
Article: Genesis 12:3, Christian Zionism, And Blessing Israel
Author: Bruce N. Fisk

BSac 180:718 (April-June 2023) p. 144

Genesis 12:3, Christian Zionism, And Blessing Israel

Bruce N. Fisk

Bruce N. Fisk is Senior Research Fellow for the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East. A draft of this paper was presented at the Evangelical Theological Society’s Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 17, 2021.

Abstract

Genesis 12:3 often serves as warrant for standing with Israel and blessing the Jewish people. After surveying Christian Zionist understandings of this verse, highlighting its canonical trajectory and interpretive challenges, we pose four questions to Christian Zionists: (1) Can we trace God’s hand in global affairs? (2) Did God promise to bless the modern state of Israel? (3) How rigorous is our study of history? (4) How might we bless Israel today?

May it be the high privilege of your Excellency, and the Honorable Secretary, to take a personal interest in this great matter, and secure through the Conference, a home for these wandering millions of Israel, and thereby receive to yourselves the promise of Him, who said to Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee,” Gen. 12:3.

—William Eugene Blackstone,

March 5, 18911

Christian Zionism In A Nutshell

Genesis 12:3 has long provided Christians with biblical warrant for blessing the Jewish people and standing with the nation of Israel. Other Scriptures are popular,2 but pride of place goes to Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

BSac 180:718 (April-June 2023) p. 145

Long before the birth of modern Israel, Lord Ashley, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801–1885), argued that God blesses nations that bless Israel and judges those that do not.3 William Blackstone (1841–1935), a disciple of Dwight Moody, enjoined President Harrison in 1891 to support the Jews to ensure God’s blessing. In 1905, Winston Churchill remarked, “The Lord deals with the nations as the nations dealt with the Jews.”4 Likewise, in the influential Scofield Reference Bible of 1909, Genesis 12:3 is “wonderfully fulfilled in the history of the dispersion. It has invariably fared ill with the people who ...