Christian dollars funding the Jewish temple

[Guest]

Dear Steve

I am a pastor. I understand that you take the preterist approach to eschatology. But did you say on one of your radio programs words to the effect, if you support the construction of a third temple you might as well send money to support terrorism?" I certainly hope not! If you didn't say or that's not what you meant please clarify what you meant because there are folks calling me who heard it that way. Although we may differ on positions of eschatology, there are well established scholars on all sides of the fence. And to make such statements are divisive and disrespectful and unnecessary. We can disagree as believers (and we often times do) but we should work out of respect for one another.

Thanks for hearing me out. If I am incorrect in my understanding of what you said, please bring clarity. Thanks you

In Him
A pastor
Salem, Oregon

[Guest]

Dear Brother --,

Thank you so much for writing about this matter. Rumors often get passed around without proper verification, and then reputations can be wrongfully sullied. I appreciate you writing to me.

I do not believe that I ever said the thing that I am reported to have said, but I have said, on occasion, something similar enough to possibly bother dispensationalists. My actual statement, which I recall, has been "We might as well send money to help build Muslim Mosques as to send money to build a Jewish Temple." This may sound like the same thing as supporting terrorism to those who know nothing of Islam than that terrorists are often of that religion, but it is a very different statement.

Obviously, the Jews' rebuilding of their temple is a peaceful enterprise, and in no sense equivalent to the criminal actions of terrorists of any faith. However, from a Christian standpoint, the building of the temple is just as much a project of an anti-Christian religion as is the building of a Mosque.

God may indeed still love the Jewish people, but He clearly has no pleasure in sacrifices and offerings of bulls and goats, nor will He ever again require them (Heb.10:6-10). Nor does He dwell in structures made by man's hands (Acts 7:48), and true worship is not associated either with "this mountain, nor Jerusalem" (John 4:21). You may know that I was a teacher/elder in the Calvary Chapel movement for several years in the seventies and eighties, and sat under Chuck for five years as a teenager. It was only when I was required to teach annually through the whole Bible that I was forced to take seriously the meaning of the Old Testament prophecies as understood by Jesus and the apostles. Disabused of my dispensational "grid," I soon learned that there is no prophecy of Scripture (Old or New Testament) that predicts the building of the Jewish temple in the end of time (that is, post-Zerubbabel), and if one such was to be built, it would be a project of rebellion against Jesus Christ, who declared that their “house” had been left to them desolate (abandoned by God), and at whose death the veil was torn to announce the absolute obsolescence of everything in the temple system. This total obsolescence is declared in no uncertain terms in Hebrews 8:13. The Jews lost the temple and were banished from Jerusalem because of their rejection of Christ (Luke 19:43-44)...a circumstance that has in no sense changed in the past 2000 years, so that the reconstruction of the temple today would be the religious equivalent of Edom's boast, "We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places" (Mal.1:4). Why should God's money (the offerings of Christians) be used to build Jewish houses (the temple of an anti-Christian religion), when God's real house (the church) lies in ruins (Haggai 1:4)? This is my reasoning and the basis of my controversial statement.

It is ironic, though, that many churches are more inclined to extend charity to the modern-day equivalent of the scribes, Pharisees and chief priests (whose predecessors crucified Jesus), but will extend less charity of spirit toward fellow followers of Christ, whose stance in favor of historic Christian eschatology comes into conflict with their modern-day eschatological innovations. I think a basic course in the history of doctrine and one in basic New Testament exegesis would go a long way toward dispelling this confident and intolerant dogmatism. I would be very happy to dialog further on this or any other issue of interest to you. God bless you, my brother.

[Guest]

Steve,

I really like what you say about why the temple should not be rebuilt! Your comments about the present Jewish leadership and the Pharisees, etc., though, could be taken as anti-Semitic, it seems. One Messianic Jewish book that I have on Yeshua and the early church emphasizes that Jesus was not against the Pharisees, but was opposed to some of their practices that he saw as hypocritical.

[Guest]

You make a good point about Jesus and the Pharisees. They were actually the one party of the Jews whose beliefs aligned most closely with His own on many points. Unfortunately, most of them had apparently become pompous and pretentious in their religious attitudes, inconsistent in their application of the law, and unmerciful toward those who had fallen short of their high standards. That they were more loyal to the rabbinic traditions than to the word of God was also one of Christ's criticisms of them.

There were wise and good Pharisees, however, including Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimithea, who were sympathetic to Jesus (John 3:1/19:38-39) and the moderate Gamaliel (Acts 5:34). In dialog, Jesus told one Pharisee that he was "not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34) and some of them were openly converted and were known as "Pharisees who believed"—or, as we would say, "Christian Pharisees" (Acts 15:5)!

I always cringe a little when I compare modern Orthodox Jews with the Pharisees. But this is only because the word "Pharisee," in Christian cultures, has come to be synonymous with something like "self-righteous hypocrite," which is not, of course, what it means. Since the time of Christ, Christians seldom have used the word "Pharisee" in anything other than a bad way—as the word "Methodist" might come to be used in a land where some scandalous atrocity had once been perpetrated by a group of Methodists, and where no one had ever seen a Methodist since, so as to disabuse them of the negative stereotype.

In place of the term Pharisee, we could use the term "Talmudist." The "traditions of the elders," in Jesus' day, became the Talmud in later centuries. What set the Pharisees apart from the other Jewish denominations (Sadducees, Essenes, etc.), was their devotion to these rabbinic (Talmudic) traditions. Modern Orthodox Judaism, insofar as it is Talmudist, is really the direct theological descendent of Pharisaism, which, as far as I know, is not a matter of embarrassment or shame to Orthodox Jewish scholars, who freely admit this.

I did not mean to use the word Pharisee in the perjorative sense that many would take it—though I did intend to emphasize that Judaism is a different religion, which has always been contrary (and often hostile) to Christianity. Christian dollars ought to be used to support the spread of the Christian faith and the relief of the poor. Building the Jewish Temple is not in the interests of either of these things, any more than is the building of a Mosque.