What's the purpose of Israel in history?

[dwilkins]

In reviewing the "Hell" thread, it struck me that the issue of the definitions of Gehenna and Hades are central to that issue. Those terms are used in scripture to describe God's wrath being stored up against people, especially in the New Testament. Though we tend to see them as associated with individual destiny, they are actually used by Jesus as threats of national destruction (per Wright, there is a possibility that ALL of the references to wrath and such can be explained in that way). The question is whether or not the national destruction of Israel is a hint at the destiny of all men, or if the punishment of the Jews in 70AD exhausts the meanings. Which brings us to the title question, what is the purpose of Israel in history? Are they a chosen people as an ends in itself? Are they simply a vehicle through whom God brings deliverance to all men? Are they more of a group through whom God gives us examples of how he deals with all men? I don't hear this angle of Israelology talked about much, but I don't think we can get very far in understanding scripture without coming to some sort of position on it.

Doug

[Homer]

Hi Doug,

The question is whether or not the national destruction of Israel is a hint at the destiny of all men, or if the punishment of the Jews in 70AD exhausts the meanings.

Almost all my books are in temporary storage so I am a bit handicapped temporarily, but it seems to me if it is not the former, but the latter in your question, then the earliest church Fathers were woefully misinformed, which is hard to explain how they could be so far off base so soon. I would say they took the talk of Gehenna and destruction as far more than a hint.

[Paidion]

I have a question. Why does the apostle Paul, in all of his 12 letters to the churches, never mention Gehenna even once?

[steve]

I have a question. Why does the apostle Paul, in all of his 12 letters to the churches, never mention Gehenna even once?

I believe it is because Paul never wrote to Palestinian Jews, who were the only people to whom the threat applied. Only Jesus threatened His listeners with Gehenna, and they were all facing the same imminent doom.

There is no biblical basis for identifying the Valley of Hinnom with postmortem hell. To do so was a rabbinic tradition, "the leaven (doctrine) of the scribes and Pharisees." Expecting Jesus to affirm the speculations of apostate rabbis, which had been imported from Egyptian, Greek and Persian paganism, seems unreasonable in the extreme—especially since there was a solid biblical precedent for meaning "the destruction of Jerusalem" by that term (Jeremiah 7:31-32 and Isaiah 30:33; 66:24 w/Mark 9).

[dwilkins]

I have a question. Why does the apostle Paul, in all of his 12 letters to the churches, never mention Gehenna even once?

I believe it is because Paul never wrote to Palestinian Jews, who were the only people to whom the threat applied. Only Jesus threatened His listeners with Gehenna, and they were all facing the same imminent doom.

There is no biblical basis for identifying the Valley of Hinnom with postmortem hell. To do so was a rabbinic tradition, "the leaven (doctrine) of the scribes and Pharisees." Expecting Jesus to affirm the speculations of apostate rabbis, which had been imported from Egyptian, Greek and Persian paganism, seems unreasonable in the extreme—especially since there was a solid biblical precedent for meaning "the destruction of Jerusalem" by that term (Jeremiah 7:31-32 and Isaiah 30:33; 66:24 w/Mark 9).

I agree with Steve for the most part, but with a couple of minor twists. I'd argue that Paul's description of wrath and doom due to the Jews throughout the empire was synonymous with the use of the term Gehenna because the it is associated with the national eschaton. In addition, Paul never used the phrase "born again" (though John and Peter did), but we don't doubt that Paul's concept of salvation is the same as the rest of the Apostles.

The question on the Gehenna issue is whether nor not the plain text meaning of Gehenna exhausts the meaning of it. If so, then there is no basis for judgement in the afterlife outside of the Lake of Fire (which some would speculate is just another image of Gehenna). I suspect that there is an additional layer of meaning because the Jews of the period understood Gehenna to mean afterlife punishment and Jesus did nothing to disabuse them of that.

So, is Israel an end in itself so that it's destiny does not apply to the rest of history? Or, is it an object lesson for God's relationship with men in general?

Doug

[Paidion]

Steve, I have been considering your interpretation—that it's all about the destruction of the Jewish people in 70 A.D.

If that is the case, how would you interpret Jesus' concluding statement in his discourse of Gehenna?

Verse 49:

... for every one will be salted with fire.

[steve]

Paidion,

That is a very good question, which I have not thoroughly thought out to a final solution. I have found the statement perplexing all my life.

Robin Parry, a universalist who understands Gehenna to be eschatological hell, has made the intriguing suggestion that Jesus is referring to hell as a purifying phenomenon, as salt was seen to purify sacrifices. I confess that I find his explanation sensible—more sensible in fact than any I have heard from any other camp. Is this how you have seen it?

My only problem with it is that my studies of Gehenna in the past few years have given me very strong reasons to believe it to be a reference to the fate of the apostates in AD70. This understanding does not, in my opinion, support any one view of hell more than another, since it removes the statements about Gehenna entirely from the discussion of eschatological hell. I could be a traditionalist, a conditionalist or a restorationist in my understanding of final destinies, and still see Gehenna this way.

This understanding is independent of any preference about any other theological system (though the full-preterist would be somewhat required to see it this way, I am not a full-preterist, and therefore feel no pressure from that direction). My opinion about Gehenna (though minimally tentative) is unconnected to any of my other theological commitments and is simply the result of exegesis. If it is correct, it does not strengthen any of my other prejudices, and if it is mistaken, it doesn't weaken any of them.

The factors that have influenced me (some of which are repeated from prior mention above) would be:

1. There was no divine revelation, prior to Jesus Himself, of any kind of eschatological hell;

2. All Jewish opinions on the subject in Jesus' times arose in the intertestamental period (mostly from 1 Enoch) and were borrowed from pagan cultures among whom the Jews were dispersed—esp. Egyptian, Greek and Persian.

3. It seems that Enoch was the first Jewish writer to teach that Hades was divided into two compatments: Paradise and Gehinnom (Gehenna). How Enoch came to use this valley as an image of the afterlife is unknown. However Judith, without mentioning Gehenna, had applied Isaiah 66:24-25 to a postmortem hell. It seems possible that Enoch, recognizing that Isaiah 66 was about the Valley of Hinnom, decided to use that term for Judith's hell.

4. In Jesus' day, Gehenna was commonly used by the rabbis (Pharisees) as a designation for hell after this life—though the rabbis had as many specific opinions about it as Christians now have about hell. In fact, in the intertestamental period, some rabbis taught annihilation, some eternal torment, and some purgation with restoration.

5. When Jesus used the term, He was using a term that many of His contemporaries had heard the rabbis use of hell, though He warned His followers to ignore (or rather to "beware" of) the Pharisaic doctrines, in general (Matt.16:12). It is my opinion that Jesus commonly used terms and concepts in their Old Testament senses, even when the common teaching of the rabbis had corrupted them. For example, the terms "Messiah," "Son of Man," and "Kingdom of God" were all in common use among the rabbis, but Jesus ignored their understanding of these things in favor of definitions informed by the canonical scriptures.

6. We know that the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah had both spoken of the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) as the fate of the apostates in Israel (especially in Jerusalem). Jeremiah, used it describing the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem (7:31-34; 19:6-13). Isaiah 30:33 associated it with the place of Assyria's destruction outside Jerusalem, and, in 66:24-25, associated it with the later destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Jesus, I think, had both Isaiah and Jeremiah in mind (not Enoch and the rabbinic teachings) when He spoke of this valley. He specifically identified Isaiah 66 with Gehenna in the passage you mentioned (Mark 9:47-48).

7. This identification also fits the fact that both John (Mal.3:1-2; 4:5-6; Matt.3:10-12) and Jesus (Matt.8:11-12; 21:18-19, 40-44; 22:7; 24:2; Luke 13:1-9; 19:41-44; 23:28-31) had come to Israel to warn of the sifting that was about to take place, and the holocaust that would overtake the apostates. The judgment was always an imminent one, that would take place in that generation. Jesus even said that the fires of "Gehenna" would come upon them in "this generation" (Matt.23:33, 36).

These are my reasons for thinking as I do about Gehenna. This identification is, perhaps, problematic in some passages. One would be the passage about which you inquired—but then, I always found that passage opaque even before I thought this way about Gehenna. It is clear that every major theological view has some awkward texts to contend with. However, if there is strong exegetical reason to accept a certain view on the strength of the general teaching of scripture, we generally assume that the awkward texts can somehow be harmonized with the general teaching.

I am open to more light on the subject, and especially anything that clears up this "salted with fire" statement thoroughly.

[dwilkins]

Since you mentioned Full Preterism I will talk for a moment about what I know of their view of Israel. With the exceptions of some outliers such as Ed Stevens (who is strongly Reformed in the rest of his theology and tends to follow essentially conventional protology and soteriology), the majority of Full Preterists that I know are attracted towards what they would call Covenant Eschatology. CE is the position that the "end time" is the end of the Old Covenant, so that all eschatology has to do with the transition from the Old to New Covenant. This is why they say that all eschatology is over, since the Old Covenant is a thing of the past. Likewise, their protology (or doctrine of creation) tends to be (though there are traditionalists mixed in) one of Covenant Creation, where the creation story is the story of establishing the original covenant with man. They'd say God created the world at some point, but the first few chapters of Genesis isn't that story (I've been fascinated to see that people like Walton have agree with them lately, though from a different angle). So, for Full Pretrism, the purpose of Israel in history is that they were the representatives of the covenant people in humanity and through them a savior came who accomplished the mechanics to allow all people to join the follow on covenant.

Most Full Preterists would say that all of the references to "hell" were references to the calamity of 70AD. A large number of them are universalists. You can search on the term "pantellism" to find some of their more coherent universalist writings. Universalism and strong preterism (the term Full Preterism is new, but the leaders in universalism in America have tended to be preterist) have roots back to the 1700's on the east coast. There are also a decent number of annihilationist/CI preterists, who'd say that Gehenna language has to do with 70AD, but only those who become believers are gifted eternal life. Those who are not saved simply die like animals without any afterlife personal eschatology. Because they see Israel as essentially the covenant people of God, there is some confusion about whether or not you can see Israel as extending past the Old Covenant conclusion.

This is where the self-described (following Chris Camillo) hyper preterists come it. They would say that all of the people of the covenant who were saved, were saved in 70AD and that Biblical salvation stopped at that point. After that you could be a person who was persuaded that Israel's God is the true God, but there is no particular hope after death. The primary mistake there, in my opinion, is to fail to see how the New Testament is described as being a perpetual institution as Isaiah 65-66 describes its function in the New Heaven and New Earth.

So, if Israel was/is an end in itself, I think you will tend to move towards Full Preterism/CE/CC. You don't have to end up there, but I think you'll probably be drawn towards that (unless you escape the trap of the language of eschatology in the New Testament by proposing an otherwise unanticipated era of a separate people of God, which is Dispensationalism). On the other hand, it seems to me that Israel was being used by God to combine the function of teaching all men about himself by example and object lesson, and to use Israel as a means of providing a savior to all men. I would describe this through the Titanic parable, where, in order to get all of the passengers to leave the sinking ship, the Captain uses a subset (Israel) to teach them how to get into the boats. In the process some Israel actually gets into boats. But, the point is to teach everyone how to do it. So, as the Biblical narrative wraps up with the first generation of people being shown how to avoid destruction and accomplish salvation, we then move into a period in which everyone is being invited aboard the lifeboats. The leads me towards where I am eschatologically, which is basically J. S. Russell's position. He was most certainly not a Full Preterist because he saw some future fulfillment of eschatology in the Gog/Magog revolution of Revelation 20. That would make my position very similar to Amillennialism, since we'd see this as the time of a spiritual kingdom in heaven before a vaguely described end some long time into the future. Though most people don't actively think about it, how they handle Israel will have dramatic implications to the rest of their theology.

Doug

[steve7150]

anything that clears up this "salted with fire" statement thoroughly.

User avatar
steve








Maybe it's like when Paul quoted from Isaiah saying everyone in heaven and on the earth would praise God and Paul added plus those "under the earth" hinting at postmortem repentance IMO. Perhaps Jesus quoted Isaiah but then added something for those with ears to hear which is that after destruction and death everyone would be salted with fire, presumably in the lake of fire.

[jriccitelli]

I read your post only quickly Doug, as I just saw it come up. I agree, but I will comment that I find no problem between understanding 70ad as a fulfillment of Gods curse in the Law of Moses on unbelievers in Jerusalem, Jesus' predictions of their fulfillment, and the understanding that Gods judgments are often 'repeated', with repetitive fulfillments. Gods warnings apply to ‘all’ sinners and all the disobedient who don’t heed the warnings.

God’s judgment of believers was exhausted on Calvary, but the smoke of His judgment against sin will go up forever as a reminder.