Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 180:718 (Apr 2023)
Article: A Response To Darrell Bock
Author: Bruce N. Fisk

BSac 180:718 (April-June 2023) p. 176

A Response To Darrell Bock

Bruce N. Fisk

I have learned much from several years of dialogue with Darrell Bock and other Christian Zionist scholars, and I’m grateful to Bibliotheca Sacra for letting us open up that conversation to a wider audience. Bock rightly notes that I understand Christian Zionism in political terms, as active support for Jewish hegemony over (not just presence in) the Holy Land today. Inspired in part by Scripture and theology, the movement is activist; its proponents do not simply watch from the hermeneutical bleachers. They have moved down onto the playing field of public advocacy, funding, lobbying, voting, and shaping foreign policy.

I see New Testament authors actively integrating two elements: (1) the prophets’ hope for Israel’s restoration and (2) the apostles’ loyalty to Jesus as Messiah. But although I see hints in the New Testament that ethnic, national Israel retains its peculiar identity, I also see signs that non-Jewish Jesus followers were being welcomed as full members of God’s covenant people and heirs to the patriarchal promises. This is not the gentile church replacing Israel. This is Israel welcoming gentiles into the holy commonwealth (Eph 2:11–22).

Bock’s appeal to Jeremiah helpfully reminds us that hopes for national, territorial restoration span the prophetic corpus. As he points out, Jeremiah 31:31 promises a “new covenant” to “the house of Israel and the house of Judah,” an apparent reference to the original twelve tribes (cf. vv. 27, 33). For Luke (22:20) and Paul (1 Cor 11:25), however, the cup we raise in the Eucharist signals the inauguration of Jeremiah’s covenant. The writer of Hebrews (12:24) agrees. Might we not conclude, then, that the restored (not replaced) tribes of Israel and Judah now include not only the all-Jewish Twelve seated at the Last Supper but also the predominantly gentile Corinthians sharing the Lord’s Supper?

With Genesis 12 in mind, Bock affirms that “blessing comes through Christ alone and extends to the nations so that even they can be called of the seed of Abraham,” and that “gentiles are coheirs

BSac 180:718 (April-June 2023) p. 177

of promise.” If we must count believing gentiles as the “seed of Abraham” and “coheirs of promise,” must we not also conclude that...