Everything Wrong with Dispensational Theology

Nic (00:01):
There is an Israel test and it’s this, going back to the weight of your matters of the law. When you see what God says to Abraham to Abram in Genesis 12, he’s saying, “I’m going to put weight on you. ”

(00:12):
So God says, “I’m going to put my name on the Jewish people. I’m going to put my name on Jerusalem.” He literally stamps it in the geography from looking at it from 10,000 feet. So what is he telling Abraham? There’s a weight on you. Therefore, however people treat you, it’s a pretty clear reflection of how they want to treat me. So that’s the Israel test. How you treat Israel, how you treat the Jewish people is a clear sign of how you understand the Bible, of how you want to treat God, of how you understand what God loves and what God doesn’t love. And if you can sort it out, it gives you the ability to sort out all sorts of other things. Because you’re saying, what is God doing? What’s been done in history? What is sociologically happening? What is happening geographically? What’s happening politically?

(00:58):
And if you can look at all that from a real Christian believer’s point of view with nuance, then I think you can actually sort through some really challenging stuff.

David (01:07):
Yeah, because you can hold those things in tension. Welcome back everybody to a very special episode of the Covenant and Conflict Podcast where we take ancient truths, modern issues and see how they fit together in a modern world. We have a very special guest, a man who needs no introductions, the founder of the Center for Israel and this podcast, Nicholas Lesmeister.

Nic (01:36):
Oh, I got my full name.

David (01:38):
Nice. Nick without the K is what we call him

Nic (01:41):
Around here. It’s true.

David (01:42):
Thank you for coming back.

Nic (01:43):
And to be back. Yeah. I haven’t been on for a while.

David (01:46):
I know. But now you get to come back and- Yeah,

Nic (01:49):
Big fan though. Big

David (01:49):
Fan of the show.

Nic (01:51):
Real big fan.

David (01:52):
Well, as I was driving in thinking, what are we going to talk about? How are we going to start the podcast? The only thing that came to my mind was it’s gotten really antisemitic ever since you left. So I don’t know if you were holding it at bay or we’ve not done our job.

Nic (02:05):
Oh my word.

David (02:06):
The world has

Nic (02:07):
Changed a lot in

David (02:08):
A quick amount of time. So we experienced it. This podcast really launched very close to October 7th. It was like a couple months after October 7th, I think.

Nic (02:19):
Right. It was. I think it was June of 2024.

David (02:21):
Because one of our first episodes was talking about why is this different? Why is this word different? That’s true. And we’ve seen a lot happen since October 7th. So you have no longer sat in this specific seat, but obviously you’re still very connected with the people of Israel, connected with the Messianic movement here in America and in Israel. So I’d love to just take a step back and hear from your perspective as someone who’s given your life to loving Israel and the Jewish people and advocating for this understanding of theology of the olive tree and the covenant that God has with Israel, but the Gentiles has been grafted into. What has your perspective been the past couple years looking at what we’ve seen where now even the average Christian probably sees like, “Oh yeah, I’m hearing a lot about the Jews and a lot about Israel.” So what’s happened?

Nic (03:14):
Yeah. Well, one of my favorite quotes unfortunately is ascribed to a communist leader, Vladimir Lennon. It is a good quote though. The principle of it is interesting. He says that there are weeks where nothing happens and then there are days where weeks happen. So I feel like the period that we’ve been in, I mean, of course a revolutionary would say something like that, right? But it is a revolutionary moment in the world and it’s hard not to go back to October 7th of 2023 and view that as a acceleration point because it was. And I think in the ethos of what you and I want to talk about, of course it would happen in Israel. So as Christians and as those who believe the word of God, the Bible, the written narrative of scripture, the Jewish scriptures, and then the New Testament, we really do believe that God is orchestrating all of things that are happening on the earth, like all reality, right?

(04:16):
Like he’s in control, he’s sovereign. And in our space, because we have a love for Israel and a biblical understanding of what the Bible says about Israel, we can easily make the assumption and the understanding of, well, yeah, then if something happens in Israel, there’s going to be a really serious consequence for it around the world. So it ties into what you and I want to talk about because this one event which was horrific happens in Israel and then all of a sudden it’s like the whole world doesn’t seem to have been the same ever since.

(04:49):
But if you think back to even COVID, we’re rolling in on almost seven years. We just passed six years since COVID started, right? So we’re kind of entering into this seventh year and I’m not big into Bible numerology and seasons and all that other stuff, but it’s just interesting that it’s really been since then that we’ve been in this place of real disruption and things just gained speed and I think we talked many times probably after October 7th, like what shocked us was not only the horrific things that happened on 10 seven, but then the response of the rest of the world and how ugly it was and how quickly it shifted into an antisemitic point of view.

David (05:33):
Yeah.

Nic (05:33):
Because on one hand you’re like, “Wow, this event is going to create great sympathy for Jewish people because it was the only thing in recent memory that’s like the Holocaust, but then it quickly went the other way.” So that’s when you begin to realize, wow, there’s some real faulty logic out there. And unfortunately it just kept like a wave just slowly creeping onto land. It has found its way into places that we never thought it would, like even into conservative movements, even back into the church in a way where the theology of some of this stuff had been long disavowed and honestly seen as antiquated and simplistic, now it’s coming back. So yeah, a lot has changed.

David (06:17):
We’re in a weird spot both theologically and politically, like you mentioned. I know Bill Maher, comedian, Jewish, I think most people would say like pretty liberal, but now pretty liberals, pretty moderate compared to where the ends of the spectrum have gone. And he was talking to someone, he was like, “Is antisemitism like chickenpox?” It lives dormant in people and then all of a sudden in your 50s it can manifest. Is that what antisemitism is? And I think in some ways that’s what I hear you saying is it was disavowed, but was it just dormant? I’ve talked to a lot of people that are communicating shock that they didn’t realize that people believed this, that the Jews run the world, the Jews run the media, the Jews run this, we have to solve the Jewish problem, things that were so disavowed in the Holocaust. My first question is like, was it truly something disavowed or was it something that was just kind of a guilt ridden pause that now is creeping up again?

(07:33):
Were we just living in a post-Holocaust season where everything was peaceful for a moment but nothing was really solved or was there truly something that was solved with the Catholic church and Nostra Tate and realizing all these theologies? Because a lot of the Catholics are coming out with the same covenant theology. So what was that span of Holocaust October 7th? What really happened? Was it just lying dormant?

Nic (08:01):
Yeah, it’s so hard to know because it was what, about 80 years, right? So that’s really like a lifestyle or lifespan of a generation. So there’s some functionality generationally into all of this as well and how the human memory is so short, but if you look all the way back through the Arc of History, which you’ve done in a lot of the things that you’ve taught, I mean, it is true antisemitism is the scourge that has never gone away. It’s the oldest hatred in the world. It really is. I mean, it’s the one that can be pinpointed all the way back through history books for thousands of years.

(08:38):
So I think you’re right that there’s something underlying there where it sort of spreads or it mutates. We’ve talked about this, that it is a virus and it infects and then after a while it gets treated, but then it mutates, but it’s still the same virus. So what do we do with that? And a lot of it tends to be around … I think a lot of it is just there’s probably two major reasons. One is it will grow, antisemitism will grow to the extent that you don’t have relationship with any Jewish person, that you’re removed from Jewish

David (09:15):
People. The imaginary Jew in your mind.

Nic (09:17):
That’s

David (09:17):
Right.

Nic (09:18):
And the majority of people don’t have any relationship with any Jewish person anywhere

David (09:22):
Because

Nic (09:22):
They’re a minority group of people. I mean, 15, 16 million people normatively. So the other component to that then is it’s easy to scapegoat 15 to 16 million people who are different, who are largely successful, who have stood the test of time and that doesn’t make logic sense, like logical sense. Why are these people continuing … Why did Israel just knock off like four to five of their major enemies from massive other countries? They’re like gone now. So as going back to like 2020, we’ve been in this real disrupted place all over the world. So everybody is trying to figure out who’s to blame for their problems and this is a pattern that you see all the way back in antisemitic history.

David (10:15):
Black plague, who’s to blame.

Nic (10:16):
Absolutely.

David (10:17):
Anytime

Nic (10:17):
That there’s something that someone can’t figure out, like I’m doing everything right and so why is this still happening to me? It just becomes very convenient to blame the Jewish people

David (10:28):
Because

Nic (10:29):
They’re always the most quintessential other. And interestingly enough, I’m not arguing that that’s wrong because they are the biblical other. That’s the thing. Actually, God made it that way when he created a distinction and said, “I’m going to choose this one nation as mine.” Then he basically said, “They’re going to be other forever.”

David (10:45):
Yeah. And I’m calling you out from those nations.

Nic (10:47):
Yeah. So they’re always going to be other. So then the devil always has an opportunity to sew entity between all the other people and the other, the one that’s distinct and it maintains its distinction. So it mutates and it’s always convenient. So what we have is we’ve got a wildfire of misinformation, have the propensity to ride the rails of history and just live with like the ease of antisemitism because it really is sort of just built in far enough back unless you actively uproot it. So if you’re just like, “Yeah, I like Jewish people, they’re cool.” Until how long? I mean, how much work have you done in your own heart to grow from tolerance to placing something in you that says, “No, I don’t just like them. I value them.” I see their value biblically, I see their value in the modern world. So I think over time all that gets pushed aside because it becomes less convenient to be pro- Israel, to be pro- Jewish, et

David (11:44):
Cetera.

Nic (11:46):
And then you just add into all of that the fever pitch of politics and people who are looking for purpose and identity

David (11:54):
And they’re

Nic (11:54):
Finding it in more and more political figures that are crazier and crazier.

David (11:59):
Yeah. Well, when you say October 7th accelerated, what are you saying it accelerated antisemitism or did it accelerate towards something like towards what we see in Revelation and Zechariah and stuff like that? What are we accelerating towards?

Nic (12:15):
Well, I mean, we’re definitely accelerating towards what we, as believers of the Bible, what we see is coming towards us in the end of days, it’s hard to judge where we’re at,

(12:26):
But it definitely accelerated antisemitism because that was visible, that was palpable. Like within a few days, now all of a sudden Israel who just got attacked by terrorists and over 1,200 Israelis brutally murdered, they’re trying to respond and uproot this terrorist Hamas cells in Gaza and now they’re getting blamed, right? Yeah. So it’s just very quick how people just shifted and Israel’s always had to deal with this. I mean, they’ve always had to deal with having to justify themselves more than anybody else, having to create a perfect narrative. It’s like when sometimes if you’re married, you get into an argument with your spouse and it’s like if your spouse has to be perfect and say everything perfect in order for you to not get triggered emotionally or to understand them, then that’s an unhealthy

David (13:15):
Relationship.You’ve

Nic (13:17):
Got to give them latitude to go, “Okay, you didn’t say that perfectly, but I get what you’re trying to say.”

David (13:22):
I didn’t use that exact word.

Nic (13:23):
Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. Or, “I can’t believe you said that. Are you serious? That was the adjective that you would use to describe me.

David (13:29):
”

Nic (13:29):
But people are like that when they get inflamed. And I think that’s what really happened after October 7th is the inflammation grew in the average person towards like, “Man, just don’t know how I feel about this Jewish stuff, these Jewish people. ” And then just one thing leads to another and then it’s just the snowball effect of the scapegoating that is just convenient because it’s so easy to just put your problems on somebody who you don’t know who’s distant and far away and other people are doing it too.

David (13:58):
Yeah. So when you look at the world politics, non-believers, it makes sense logically scapegoat, people that don’t assimilate well. I was talking to a young Jewish guy and I was kind of sharing with him the spiritual side of antisemitism that the enemy hates what God loves, that God called them apart and he was like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” I always thought it was just because we wouldn’t assimilate. So that was his kind of very logical othering and scapegoat. It’s easy because they never assimilate. They never were one of us. They have dual loyalty. They really are true citizens of Israel, even if they’re here in America. But in some ways you can kind of, at least I can understand why a non-believer would try to other somebody and scapegoat somebody as a human desire to shift guilt and blame. But when the church starts adapting this anti-Jewish sentiment, anti-Jewish theology, that’s the one that I think is the most crushing.

(15:07):
Oh yeah. So can you help people listening right now that maybe have seen similar memes and reels and posts about dispensational theology because I think that is kind of becoming in some ways a scapegoat as well that’s trying to dismantle the pro- Israel church and many commentators have now said like, “You need to ask your pastor right now, what do you believe about Israel?” That’s the test because if they’re believing that Israel, God’s chosen, no, the church is the chosen. If they’re given to Israel, go find yourself a new church. And the word they’re often using is that’s a dispensational kind of like archaic old way of thinking, crept into the church. I don’t know when in the past hundred years, kind of like the tribulation people, like tribulation, that’s like a hundred years old. That’s how they view dispensational or dispensational theology. So can you help us understand what is dispensational theology?

(16:12):
Does a love for Israel all fall under that umbrella? Are we all dispensationalists or how do we navigate that versus like a covenant theology?

Nic (16:22):
Yeah. Well, dispensational theology, it’s been a while since I’ve read up on it and there’s also different variants of it now. You have kind of classical dispensational theology, then you have progressive dispensational theology. So people are moving along the spectrum as they’re getting more understanding. But classic dispensationalism that was really advanced mostly by John Nelson Darby in the recent history is basically that there’s these two dispensations. There’s like the God dealt with Israel, then Jesus comes on and inaugurates this period where the Gentile majority Christian church is established, but then at some point there’s an end to that essentially and then God pivots back to Israel so that becomes-

David (17:05):
So dispensation essentially means like a time. He had a time for Israel being the chosen and now we’re in a time of the church.

Nic (17:16):
Right. But the unique thing about classical dispensationalism is that it holds space for all Israel being saved in the future. So typically dispensationalism is married to pre-millennialism, which is a understanding of the rule and reign of Jesus. So you’ve got all millennial, post-millennial and pre-millennial. The majority of evangelicals, whether they know it or not, are pre-millennial, which means Jesus returns and establishes a thousand year reign. So that marries really well with dispensational theology. So most dispensationalists are pre-millennial dispensationalists. So they believe in Jesus coming back establishing a thousand year reign and then all Israel is saved as a part of that. So that’s where the Jewish peace comes in and they really became popularized through like the Let Behind series stuff that was connected more to the rapture and different frameworks for end times theology. So it all got sort of just dumped into a dispensational basket and then those people tended to on the whole be more pro- Israel because they viewed God resurrecting the nation of Israel in 1948 as a sign that he was getting ready then to move on Israel spiritually at some point.

(18:34):
So it was assigned to them that the end of days like we’re in the end of days.

David (18:37):
So all

Nic (18:38):
Of this stuff gets fused together. So it’s an easy whipping post to be, to your point, like people like ask them if they’re dispensational because it has become so uniquely linked to being pro- Israel. There probably are dispensational people out there that maybe aren’t pro- Israel. I don’t know. It probably goes cross-current with their theology on end times. But when we established the Center for Israel, this was really a key distinctive that we wanted to try to make is not that we’re not dispensational, though we’re not, but it was more the view of, man, Christian dispensationalism had so overtaken the whole at least Christian narrative on Zionism. So if you were a Christian Zionist like nine and a half times out of 10, you’re a dispensationalist because it just had a huge movement. It grew up a lot in the evangelical movement and I would say baby boomer age demographic believers just like it was all about the Bible says what it says.

(19:36):
It’s a literal translation of the Bible. So when God said, “Can a nation be born in a day?” That happened on May 14th of 1948 and then it looks into the future and it predicts these literal things. So that became the super sign and then June of 1967 when Israel wins the six day war, they get Jerusalem back. We’re like, “Wow, we’re moving down the board-”

David (19:57):
Getting closer and closer. …

Nic (19:58):
Towards the return of Jesus, right where all Israel will be saved. And there’s some Messianic Jews that are, I think their worldview is shaped by a pre-millennial dispensationalist point of view. It’s always been a conundrum to me how that works. I mean, most of the Messianic friends or all that we have wouldn’t fall into that camp. So really the distinctive for what we would say really our point of view is more is that we’re historic pre-millennialists, which basically means historically if you look at the New Testament scripture, the pre-millennial point of view of Jesus returning and ruling and reigning was a historic understanding even in the first century. So it has nothing to do with dispensationalism, which is a layer on top of that. That’s an overlay that John Nelson Darby put on pre-millennialism. So it’s all a bunch of fancy words.

David (20:47):
Yeah. Well, I think it’s good to help ground people that you can be a pre-millennialist but not a dispensationalist. And correct me if I’m wrong, one of the points of dispensationalism is that in the end times the church is raptured and that the Jewish people are stuck and now it’s Jacob’s time of trouble. I think that’s also been hard for many Jewish people to stomach and that’s been the argument many times of, “Oh, they’re dispensationalist. They just want us to be in Israel so that Jesus comes back and then we all suffer.” Right?

Nic (21:24):
Yeah. And so I remember, gosh, this was what, almost 14, 15 years ago now when Wayne, Dr. Wayne Wilkes was still leading MJBI. I was on the board at the time and we had engaged with George W. Bush to be our banquet speaker. So every fall we did a big banquet to raise money for the work of the ministry that was planting schools to train Messianic Jewish leaders to plant congregations and reach their people. So George W. Bush came and somehow the media found out about this. This is four years after he was out of office and Rachel Madow from MSNBC ran this huge expose one night on MSNBC about MJBI, this little like one and a half million dollar a year nonprofit in Dallas-Fort Worth, but it was all on the basis of George W. Bush is promoting a ministry that wants to get all the Jews saved and wants and it was all about the rapture and Christians getting out of the earth so that the Jews are going to go through all this and then Jesus is going to descend and save them all.

(22:25):
And so it’s funny because I’m like, “Is Rachel Maddow a dispensationalist? How does she know all that? ” It was interesting. It

David (22:33):
Was before Chat, so

Nic (22:34):
She had to have done some recent. Right. Yeah. But it was always fascinating to me because I’m like, “Wow, we’re like tangential to all of that. ” That’s not art theology in any way, but for some reason that began to be the fusion of Christian Zionism, which was politically motivated. So when we started the Center for Israel, and you know this, that we wanted to make a very distinct decision that wasn’t us and it wasn’t us saying that’s bad and it’s wrong. I think the people who are sincere Christian dispensationalists who are Christian Zionists have done much great work. So I’m not going to poo-poo any of all that, but what we wanted to say is we don’t buy into that framework and there’s a biblical and a sincere reason to love the Jewish people and I think-

David (23:22):
It’s not tied to the end times.

Nic (23:23):
Yeah. And when I engaged with a lot of Christian Zionists who were from a dispensational point of view, there was always this like, “Well, I’m holding the Bible high my back and it’s like I’m meeting all these Jewish people and it’s amazing how God’s going to save all you Jews.” But in their own mind, I’m like, “Man, it just seems insincere to me. ”

David (23:42):
It’s not out of a love for what God has claimed. Those are my firstborn love what God loves in relationship with Jewish people, it can feel gotcha or … And

Nic (23:54):
It also kind of deteriorates the fact that God might be working amongst them right now.

(24:00):
Just because they haven’t put their faith in Jesus, does that actually mean that the Father who’s in covenant with them isn’t still working in their midst? It’s like, was God working in my life before I came to faith in Jesus? Oh, you bet he was saving me from all sorts of ridiculous things to get me to a point where the light bulb came on and I’m not saying like we’re trying to do that, like nurture every Jewish person to like, “I’m going to get you to where you can say yes to Jesus.” But it to me felt like there was a void there. So I’m saying all this, David, to say, I think what people are experiencing right now is they’re seeing the hollow nature of dispensationalism. And I’m not trying to disparage anybody who’s a dispensationalist. I’m just saying all of us in all of our theology and all of our philosophies, we leave awake, have to turn around and look and say, “Does that experience match what I actually believe?” And I don’t think the experienced dispensationalists have left historically over time actually matches the sincerity of what they’re professing to believe.

(25:00):
But I think when you stand back and look at it, you’re like, “Yeah, there’s some problems here.” So if you sincerely believe that and you’re unwilling to look at the fruit in your life and make adjustments

(25:09):
And marry that up against what scripture says and the lived reality of others that are experiencing you, then I think there’s a problem.

David (25:16):
Yeah. Well, and the Holocaust was that wake for I think the global church, right? It was the Catholic church was the one that turned around and said, “Is that what our theology leads to? ” That’s right. And so they had this second Vatican council, right? Something you mentioned was the dispensational view of God having a covenant with his people and then leading to Romans 11:26, 25, 26 about all of Israel being saved. A lot of people I think are confusing dispensational theology with dual covenant theology because people are saying, and I’ve heard them say this or ask this, “Do you believe that Israel is God’s chosen?” And if you say yes, then you’re a dispensationalist probably is what they would say, but really what you’re saying is the Jews don’t need Jesus because how can they be the chosen? Because chosen means saved and the covenant theology response, which I think a lot of these Christians have is saying the church is God’s chosen.

(26:26):
And they would even add caveats like, “And the church is Jew and Gentile. I get that. But if you are not accepting Jesus, how can you be chosen?” The church is the chosen. God doesn’t have two chosens. So what would your response to that be? Where do we land in this dual covenant, dispensational covenant, God has one people.

Nic (26:47):
Yeah. It’s not very hard. It’s hard because we’ve spent 2000 years creating false dichotomies and false distinctions. So whether or not you understand it or not, if you’re alive today and you’re the average Christian, you’ve just grown up with this belief that Christians are a new race, you’re a different type of person when you get converted- No longer

David (27:11):
Jew and Gentile, baby,

Nic (27:12):
Glaciers too. Yeah, right. I mean, we’ve talked a lot about this, but it’s just one of those things where once you start to unwind it, it doesn’t take a lot for it to unravel because you just go back through scripture and this is what dispensationalists do well is they say we are fundamentally … We believe what the Bible says. So when God says, “I’m going to bless Abraham Isaac and Jacob and his descendants and I’m going to give him land, we believe it. ” And it was an eternal thing. So it’s not that hard when you just understand that Romans 11 Paul’s painting a picture with an olive tree of grafting of adding in. It’s taking something that was not native and attaching it to something that is native in order for that to become native. It doesn’t mean that it is fully native, but it’s planted into the native plant.

(27:56):
So that’s why Romans 11 is such a critical point that now added another different theology here, you go into reform theology, which is another layer on top of all this crazy theology. And for them, Romans nine, 10, 11 is all about predestination and the sovereignty of God because they read Romans nine and they’re like, “Oh, God foreknew and God chose this and whatever and he can choose whoever he wants to. He’s the potter and the clay you can tell, whatever.” That’s taking something so wildly out of context. So you get to Romans 11 when you look at it actually more holistically and what Paul’s actually saying in context to the Roman church about Jewish people and he starts by saying, “Has God rejected Israel by no means?” He says it again in Romans 11:11. Then he goes into this whole thing about life from the dead, the Gentiles got added and that one day there’s going to be this light from the dead revival that he gave the gospel to the Gentiles with a responsibility to provoke Israel to jealousy.

(28:56):
What do you see right there? You see a father’s heart saying, “I really want to reach my people who I’m in covenant with, but maybe if I invite these others in, they’re going to get jealous and want to claim it for themselves.” And then yeah, Paul ends up saying, “Don’t be ignorant, don’t be arrogant about this mystery is a mystery.” So what has the church done for 2000 years? We’ve been ignorant and arrogant. We’ve been ignorant of the fact that it’s very clear in the Bible that there is a distinction between Israel and the nations that God meant to maintain and it doesn’t mean one’s better than the other. And that’s what Paul’s tearing down in Galatians and Ephesians is that there’s not an enmity between us because being Jewish is better than being Gentile, but when you put your faith in Jesus, he is the convergence point.

(29:39):
He’s the point where the nations and Israel converge and they maintain their uniqueness and they join together for the sake of world redemption. So that’s the ignorance part is the church is ignorant of this because we’ve spent all this time offended that God would still have a covenant with Jewish people even if they don’t believe in Jesus. And that’s what Paul was warning them about.

(29:59):
It’s like, Listen, if you think that you’re chosen now in place of the original branch, you better watch out because God can rip you out of the tree just as fast as you can count to 10.

(30:10):
That’s a Texas version of scripture right there. Like it is blitz. So that’s the ignorance part. The arrogance part then is to turn around and say, we’re chosen now. We’re the new Israel spiritual. We’re the new Israel. And it’s even beyond that. It’s like, how dare you claim you’re chosen? It’s one thing if a Christian was like, I’m chosen by God and you can be too to the Jewish people. But there’s just something spiritually because the devil is at work in all of this trying to distort everything. It changes that to a point of like, you can’t be chosen.

David (30:43):
There’s

Nic (30:43):
No way you can be chosen. You want to be chosen? Eat a ham sandwich. Get rid of your Jewishness. And it’s like, wait, did you have to do any of that? What did you have to do? You had to give up drinking and smoking and carousing. You know what I mean? That had nothing to do with your actual identity. You didn’t have to disavow that like, oh, I’m interested in fishing. I’m not going to be in fishing anymore. I mean, all these things, that’s basic identity stuff. So why do we turn around and require Jewish people to do that if it isn’t inemity, which Paul says God tried to tear down in Jesus. So it’s just this lack of humility. And then from there you get just wild offshoots of variants of crazy theologies.

David (31:26):
Well, and I think another layer of the confusion is Christians tend to make every question about salvation.

Nic (31:35):
Oh, absolutely.

David (31:36):
So let’s talk about baptism. Are you saying that if I’m not baptized, I’m not saved? Yeah. And you’re like, no, that’s not what I’m talking about. But that’s where it goes. Communion. Okay. So if I don’t take communion, you’re saying that I’m not part of the church, I’m not saved. Can you lose your salvation?That’s one of the biggest questions in the church and I think has been for a long time. Can you lose your salvation? So everything’s about salvation. And I know that a lot of Christians I talk to, when you say that Israel still has a covenant and Israel is still chosen, what they hear is dual covenant theology. You’re saying that the Jews are saved by the Mosaic covenant. Is that what we’re saying? When you say that Israel is chosen, does that mean that they’re protected under the Mosaic covenant and they don’t need Jesus in order to have eternal life?

(32:25):
That’s I think the rub. What’s your response to that?

Nic (32:27):
Yeah. Well, I think scripture’s pretty clear. Jesus said, “I’m the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ” And when you understand that he is God’s emissary to the Jewish people, he’s the Messiah of Israel. He’s the savior of Israel. He’s the king of Israel and the head of the church, then you don’t have to ask that question because then you’re like, “Oh, he’s just trying to save his people. ” So the covenant is just, it goes beyond Mosaic. It goes beyond Davidic. I mean, always foretold of a new covenant with Jesus.

(32:59):
Dr. David Rudolph has always said this, that when you think about eternal salvation, the biblical assurance of eternal salvation is faith in Jesus. That’s the assurance of salvation. So you can put your hope in something else and roll the dice. And at the end of the day, God is God and there’s a whole lot of mystery involved in living a life of faith. The Old Testament does not talk much about heaven and hell at all. The New Testament does a litle bit. I’m not saying they’re not real places. I’m just saying that there’s something even I think in the covenantal identity of a community or an ethnos of people like the Jewish people where they’re okay to appeal that to mystery. They’re like, “We have our faith. Our faith is in God. Why do we got to get worked up about whether I’m saved or not?

(33:48):
I know I’m saved. I’m a part of the covenantal group of people.

David (33:50):
”

Nic (33:51):
So we don’t think like that because like you said, we’re living in a Greek worldview where everything is all about-

David (33:57):
Ethereal, spiritual,

Nic (33:58):
Allegorical. Yeah. And the universalism of truth, not the particularity of truth because God can say, “I don’t really care if you think that’s a chair. I’m going to tell you it’s not a chair.” And it doesn’t matter if a million people think it’s a chair. So we’re like, whatever God says a chair is, a chair is. That’s a Hebrewic monotheism. So you’re right that most Christians, they try to collapse the Bible down into, what is it about me? And that’s very modern and it’s very Protestant, right? I grew up Catholic. Catholics don’t think about that kind of stuff. They just don’t. I love all my Catholics out there. I didn’t go to church going, “Am I saved? Am I saved? Are you saved? Are we saved?” I was like, “I’m Catholic. Of course I’m

David (34:35):
Saved.” I’m part of the church.

Nic (34:36):
I’m part of the Catholic church,

David (34:37):
Man.

Nic (34:37):
Yeah, I’m frozen, chosen.

David (34:39):
And it is interesting, the Catholic church has that kind of mentality of if you do these certain things, then you’ll be cut off from the Catholic church and are ex- communicated. And that’s like hell and that’s how Israel kind of functioned. It was, you’re a part of the covenant, you’re part of the covenanted people and here is the way that we live. And if you are caught breaking Shabbat or living against God’s mitzvah and law, then you’re cut off from Israel. And so like you said, there’s this protection in community and covenant and at the same time there is this balance between just because you’re in the community doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. I remember I heard a Messianic Jewish person say this whole idea of like salvation or they saved, he’s like, “I don’t think the people in Cora’s rebellion that got swallowed up by the earth, they’re hanging out in eternity and having … They’re great because they were part of Israel.” And I think that’s why Paul says, “Not all Israel is Israel, meaning just because you’re in the lineage doesn’t mean that you’re living faithfully.” I mean, how many times throughout the Tanakh, the Old Testament are there King Ahabs?

Nic (35:56):
Totally.

David (35:56):
So, “Oh, well, he’s fine though. He’s in the covenant.” And you’re like, “No, you can live ungodly and still be in the covenant.” But again, that causes the nuance that we don’t want to wrestle with.

Nic (36:06):
Exactly.

David (36:06):
We just want black or white, saved or not saved. And then Jesus says, a lot of people are going to say, “I thought I was in. I was prophesying your name, casting means your name.” He says, “I never knew you. ” And then at the same time, he talks to other people and says, “Come on in at my right hand.” And they said, “When did we see you in prison?” And he’s like, “Oh, anytime you did it for one of the least of these, my brothers.” So people that don’t think they’re getting in are getting in, people that do think they’re getting in or not getting in, that causes a lot of trepidation, things that I think we should … Paul says, work out our salvation with fear and trembling, not with arrogance or ignorance, like you said. Yeah,

Nic (36:46):
Exactly. It really is about the humility. And that’s where I said what Dr. Rudolph says that it’s faith in Jesus is the assurance of eternal life. So if you want to be assured of eternal life, put your faith in Jesus, follow him, read and listen to what he says, which he says, everything I say, everything you see me and hear me doing is what the Father is doing. So Jesus is the mirror image of the Father. So when you talk about now Israel and you’re like, well, if Jesus is doing and mirroring at that point, everything he’s seeing the Father do, then that means today that Jewish people who are sincere in their faith are mirroring everything that the Father was doing. They’re reading the Torah, they’re understanding the scripture. So the key distinctive is just that they haven’t yet put their faith in Jesus, but that doesn’t mean that there’s a different covenant for them.

(37:35):
They might be upset at me saying that, but I think that’s the uniqueness of what the Messianic Jewish movement offers in this addition theology or olive tree theology, which is to say we affirm the covenants to Israel,

David (37:46):
But

Nic (37:46):
We also affirm Jesus’ place as Lord and as Messiah. So there is a secondary need in a way of you needing to put your faith in him.

David (37:58):
Yeah, because Paul said we needed a new covenant because there was something lacking in the old, which again, that’s a harsh verse for Jewish people to hear. There’s something lacking in the old, but it doesn’t mean that it was wrong. As Paul then later says, so is the Torah wrong? Absolutely not. It was given from God, but what was wrong was our flesh and our flesh saw the rule, saw the Torah and said, “I want to go past it. Now I want to break it. ”

Nic (38:23):
Yeah. And I think David Hopran mentions this in the masterclass, right? He talks about how Jesus, when he says, “I’ve come to fulfill the law,” he’s saying, “I’ve come to give it full meaning.”

(38:34):
And he even talks about there’s different parts of the law that are weightier than others. So when you see Jesus interacting with religious leaders, he’s actually trying to remind them, you’re putting weight on the wrong law. You’re putting weight on this law, God puts weights on this one, so you’re inaccurately weighing things and then you’re asking people to follow you. He’s trying to point them back up and say, “This is the weight of your matter. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, love your neighbors yourself.” On these two things, hang all the law of the prophets. So they’re getting distracted and he’s trying to point them back. And

David (39:06):
They’re getting distracted with many times good things. As I say, you tithe on mint and dill and everything and good, but you should have, like you said, put your emphasis on the weight of your matter. So we have this idea that he was saying, “Burn up that stuff. That’s old. Get rid of it. ” He’s actually saying, “That’s good, but there’s something weightier. There’s something more crucial.”

Nic (39:30):
Yeah. And that ties into something you and I wanted to talk about. And I know we’re probably starting to run out of time, but- No, we’re good. We talk about this idea. So there was a book written called The Israel Test a long time ago. I read a little bit of it and I just developed my own theory without having to read the whole thing. I don’t think actually what I’m proposing is like if you go get this book, I don’t think what I’m about to say matches what’s in the book, but it made me think. There is an Israel test and it’s this going back to the weight of your matters of the law. When you see what God says to Abraham, to Abram in Genesis 12, he’s saying, “I’m going to put weight on you. ” If you look at the original Hebrew and the construction of that phrase, “I’m going to bless you and whoever blesses you, I will bless.”

(40:13):
So he’s basically saying whoever treats you … And then he says, whoever I’ll curse, whoever curses you, he says, whoever treats you lightly. That’s what it really says in the Hebrew, “I will treat lightly.” So what is God saying? He’s saying, “I’m going to rest something on you. ” And we find out later, and he tells the Jewish people, “I put my name on you. ” So everywhere you went, you defamed my name when you didn’t uphold a accurate image of me because God literally said, “I’m going to put my name on a group of people. ” And then he even puts his name on Jerusalem. He says it in scripture. It’s the only city in the world where God’s name is on it. And as you know from being there, when you get a bird’s eye view of it, literally because of the way that the valleys are structured around Jerusalem, there’s a sheen that is created in the geography and sheen is the base letter for shem, which means name.

David (41:00):
So

Nic (41:00):
God says, “I’m going to put my name on the Jewish people. I’m going to put my name on Jerusalem.” He literally stamps it in the geography from looking at it from 10,000 feet. So what is he telling Abraham? “There’s a weight on you. Therefore, however people treat you, it’s a pretty clear reflection of how they want to treat me. ” So that’s the Israel test. How you treat Israel, how you treat the Jewish people is a clear sign of how you understand the Bible, of how you want to treat God, of how you understand what God loves and what God doesn’t love. And in a way, it’s not just the Bible because I feel like when I meet somebody and they’ve got a wonky view on Israel, I’m like, I can’t really take you seriously on anything else. So you might have a philosophy over here that has nothing to do with Israel, but now I’ve got to question it because if you can’t arrive at a logical conclusion on this,

(41:51):
It’s a sign to me that you can’t arrive at a logical conclusion on something else. Why? Israel is the only, literally, I’ve never had anybody tell me otherwise. It is the only thing like the modern nation state of Israel and the place of Israel and the Jewish people, it’s the only place in the world where geography, sociology, the economy, religion, history, all of it converges. It all converges there. There’s no other place. You can’t go, “Well, Texas, we have a religious history here. We have a geographic history of fighting over two groups of people fighting over a thing.” That’s why there’s something there because I think it’s in the Psalms God talks about the nations being drunk and intoxicated with Jerusalem, or maybe it’s in Zechariah, actually.

David (42:37):
Yeah, where he holds up Jerusalem like a cup.

Nic (42:39):
Yeah. And they’re intoxicated literally because … And people are intoxicated with Jerusalem. Politicians are intoxicated with Jerusalem. Jihadis are intoxicated with Jerusalem. Religious Jews are intoxicated with Jerusalem. Crazy Christian Zionists are intoxicated with Jerusalem.

David (42:54):
Literally,

Nic (42:54):
People go there and they’re like, “It’s called Jerusalem syndrome.” They show up there and they get kooky because there’s something about that place that it’s kind of as close to where heaven touches earth as you can get

David (43:04):
On a

Nic (43:04):
Physical location.

David (43:05):
If you just read the Bible, that’s what you would for sure believe.That is the center of the earth. On ancient maps, they used to tell

Nic (43:13):
Jerusalem first. You just read the Bible and you didn’t grow up in a Western construct. If you read it cover to cover, you would go, “Okay, this place is super important.” And then all of a sudden you read through Jesus’ teachings and then you get to the end, you’re like, “And this place is still super important.” Yeah, totally. It’s so important that dude comes back for it and he sits on top of a throne there. But for whatever reason, we spiritualized everything. That’s another thing about dispensationalism. It does spiritualize everything to some degree and now all of a sudden it’s like, “Yeah, Jerusalem, Dallas, New Yorky.” It’s

David (43:44):
The earth.

Nic (43:45):
Yeah.

David (43:45):
Yeah. He’s come back on the earth.

Nic (43:46):
Right. So all of this stuff feathers into the test. So when you got someone like a Tucker Carlson or a Candace Owens or a Nick Fuentes or whoever else is drinking the cuckoo juice that they drink,

(43:58):
I can’t take you seriously if you’re arriving at a conclusion on Israel that … And it’s not that we can’t disagree. It’s just that it is such a challenging thing to sort You have to actually be intellectually honest to go to Israel and come away with a honest conclusion on what’s going on there. And so Tucker shows up and he goes to the airport terminal and has a conversation with Mike Huckabee and all of a sudden he spouts off all this stuff. I’m like, first of all, you’re not even a theologian, you’re not even a historian. You don’t know anything. You haven’t gone anywhere to talk to anybody.

(44:36):
How much time have you spent listening to anybody? How much time have you been on the ground? None of it. So it’s hard for me to take people seriously when they arrive at a conclusion where it’s like, “Yeah, I’m anti-Israel and Israel’s apartheid state and all this other stuff.” I’m like, “Okay, you just read stuff. You haven’t taken any time to investigate this and live in the tension.” And that’s the whole point of this conflict. I mean, sorry, this podcast of covenant in conflict. It’s like guess what? There’s a ton of tension here and if you can’t sort it out then … Actually, here’s what I would say. I don’t want to say it negatively. If you can sort it out, it gives you the ability to sort out all sorts of other things because you’re saying what is God doing, what’s been done in history, what is sociologically happening, what is happening geographically, what’s happening politically?

(45:22):
And if you can look at all that from a real Christian believer’s point of view with nuance, then I think you can actually sort through some really challenging

David (45:31):
Stuff. Yeah, because you can hold those things in tension. As you said, because there’s the other end of the spectrum and you’ll get this with, I think probably more classic dispensationalists, which is like, oh, the holy land, you’ve been to the holy land where the streets are paved with gold and then they talk to you who’s lived in Jerusalem and you’re like, “I kind of struggled calling it the holy land while I was there.”

Nic (45:52):
The streets have stuff in them and it doesn’t smell very good sometimes.

David (45:55):
It’s

Nic (45:56):
No knock on Israel, but it’s a real place.

David (45:58):
Yeah. And you’ve wrestled with the tension of like, okay, so like God’s name is here and there is something different about Jerusalem, but at the same time, there’s wickedness here and there’s people being people and there’s sinful people. And so wrestling with that tension I think is what we’re calling people to do, not to say the political state of Israel can’t do anything wrong, that the leaders are just and moral and godly, but that those things can be true, that they are immoral, ungodly, and yet God still can maintain covenantal faithfulness, which to me it’s so weird. I was listening to a clip the other day and he said, “Who’s God’s chosen people? ” The church. And it was, why? People are saying the Jews. He’s like, “That’s crazy theology. The Jews were God’s chosen people, but they rejected Jesus so God rejected him.” And so now we have the covenants.

(46:52):
And I’m like, what do you do with Romans 11:25 through 29 where literally the gifts and calling of God as Romans 11:28 starting with those who are in opposition to the gospel, the Jewish people that are in opposition to the gospel are still my beloved for the sake of their ancestors. As regards to chosenness or some translations say election, as regard to chosenness, my gifts and callings are irrevocable,

(47:23):
Irrevocable. So I don’t know how we’re getting there.

Nic (47:28):
Well, it goes back to what you said earlier because when we individualize everything, we read Romans 11:29 and say, “Oh, God’s gifts to me are irrevocable.” How did you leap to that? But when you’re reading the Bible every day looking for something for you and not saying, God, I think we talk about this in the masterclass too, which you haven’t watched it, you need to go watch it because we cover most of all of this in there. If you would have watched the masterclass, this conversation would have been boring, right? Yeah. But we come to the Bible and we say, “God, who are you and what do you want to tell me about you? ” Not, “God, speak to me through this book. I want to know something about me today.” It’s a different posture. There’s something here that I need to align myself to versus I think you’re going to pull something out of this that’s going to affirm something in me.

(48:10):
It does both, but the real student of the Bible approaches it with humility and says, “I need to learn something here and I need God to untangle some things in me. ” Somebody once said the truth is upsetting before it’s uplifting. So if you want to be uplifted, read the Bible, let God upset you, let him mess up some of the ways that you either think about yourself that aren’t accurate, like bad at identity or how you think about other people. That’s what Jesus was doing all the time, right? Love your enemy. You’re like, “Woo, Jesus, a little crazy.” And so a lot of it does go back to this individual nature. So when you collapse God’s love for Israel and even all the modern politics and everything, it’s like everybody just takes a big funnel and they shove it down into this thing and they say, “The Jews rejected Jesus.

(48:54):
God doesn’t love him anymore. He loves us now.”

David (48:57):
I’m

Nic (48:57):
Like, “Well, okay, let’s hold ourselves up to that test. All right What have you done even in the last 24 hours that was a rejection of Jesus? Did you lie? Did you cheat? Did you swear? Did you lust? Did you do any of that? You rejected him. He still loves you. So it’s this weird appropriation where we’re like, the Jews get the curses, we get the blessings.” And you’re like, “Well, hold on a minute. We should get both.” And they’re going to get both. It’s equal.

David (49:27):
And

Nic (49:28):
That’s what Paul says when he says the gospel is to the Jew first. He also says, “So is God’s punishment.” It’s to the Jew first. So Paul was actually holding attention, but he was holding onto the anchor of they’re still beloved, like you said, and don’t you dare think that God is done with them just because he grafted you into the tree. Do not be ignorant, do not be arrogant. And I mean, sadly, that’s almost like all I see today is

David (49:52):
Ignorance,

Nic (49:53):
Tons of ignorance and just wild arrogance. And if there’s something that detests me more than anything else, it’s the arrogance and I’m not going to pound all day long on Tucker Carlson. I’m sure he’s a wonderful person and he loves his family, but it’s the arrogance and it’s how he’s playing. If you’re buying into Tucker Carlson stuff, he’s playing you because he takes this approach of like, “I’m just a village idiot and I just ask questions.” He knows exactly what he’s doing

David (50:21):
And

Nic (50:21):
Candac does the same thing too. All right, you are responsible. I don’t go to my kid and ask them a bunch of irresponsible questions and just say, “I’m just asking questions. I’m just asking questions.” It’s ridiculous. And so he’s trying to play people into this because he’s arrogant. He does not want to bend his knee to the God of scripture. In one of his interviews recently, I think it was with Bryce Crawford, he said, “I just want to talk about Jesus. I just love Jesus. I hate theology. I hate it. ” I’m like, “Well, guess what? You want to talk about Jesus? Jesus talked a lot about theology.”That’s so convenient. And I feel like a lot of the anti-Israel Christian crowd today, they just are picking and choosing convenient things and then they’re driving trains through it and we have to hold people accountable. And I’m not saying chuck them out with the bath water or bomb them in the comments.

(51:09):
I’m just saying, let’s be thoughtful. That’s the whole point of this conflict. I keep calling it this conflict, this podcast is we launched it so that this could be a space of productive conversation

(51:20):
Where we’re like, “I disagree with you. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard anybody say, but I still love you and I want to learn from you.

David (51:26):
”

Nic (51:27):
And I wish we could get more back to that and that we could get off of this crazy extremism where we read something that our uncle shared on Facebook, you know what I mean, who’s collected social security for 17 years. I’m like, “I don’t think I’m going to listen to your uncle. I don’t really care what he saw on TikTok. I’m going to go to Israel. I’m going to experience it for myself. I’m going to ask real people what really happened and I’m going to sit in the tension of it. ”

David (51:53):
Well, and it is interesting, like you said, the offense that Israel can create and the disruption, the cup that’s lifted up where the nations rage. We often think as Christians through that lens as Jesus being this rock of offense for Israel, they’re going to trip over Jesus. They just can’t get it. It’s like he’s the stumbling rock, he’s the cornerstone that the builders rejected. They kept on falling over this stone and they can’t get it. But Zechariah talks about a different stone and it’s Jerusalem and Jerusalem is this heavy stone that the nations try to lift and injure themselves on. And so I see it interestingly, New Testament, Old Testament, both talking about this rock that is going to hurt you. I think that’s what you’re saying about the Israel test. There’s a Jesus test and there’s an Israel test and let’s be really careful not to look arrogantly at a Jewish person who maybe is stumbling on a Jesus rock when you at the same time are arrogantly stumbling over the Jerusalem rock.

Nic (53:01):
That’s right. Yeah. Without taking a little bit more time, like being curious and asking some questions and actually admitting maybe you don’t know everything. Going and living in Israel will humble you so fast because all of your nice, tidy little dichotomies break apart really, really fast where you’re like, “Oh, I know what this is like. ” Israel oppresses Palestinians in the West Bank. And then you go there and you meet Palestinians that are like, “Actually, when Israel had more ruling rain over this, our lives were better.” You’re like, “Oh, what do I do with that? ” Or, “Oh, this is my friend. He’s in Israeli.” I’m not excusing things and that’s part of it is we can’t take a minority of something that’s happening and build a whole philosophy out of it, but it circles all the way back to the beginning where it is a spiritual issue.

(53:48):
There’s a spirit at work because at the end of the day, Jesus is coming back to a Jewish Jerusalem. So I do think it’s important. I agree with dispensationalists that Jerusalem being in the hands of Jewish leadership now is an important thing. I think it was actually important and I’m not saying anything about Donald Trump, but I think it was actually important in 2018 or late 2017 when the United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem because we’re the first international country that says Jerusalem is the Jewish capital of Israel.

(54:23):
So if Jesus is coming back to the Jewish capital of Israel, which he is and he isn’t coming back until the Jewish leaders say, “We welcome you, ” read Matthew 23:39, then all this is important and the devil’s going to do every single thing that he can to delay that day to get it to … I think it was what Nate B said on the podcast that this is a great distraction. Antisemitism, replacement theology, all of it, it’s like what the devil is using to distract Christians from doing what we’re supposed to be doing, which is sharing the gospel, building the kingdom of God, but when you’re so worked up about every dinky little thing that the nation of Israel is doing or the political state of Israel is doing, then you are super distracted and you are playing into the devil’s hands. That was a strong one right there.

David (55:07):
Wow. That was good. Well, a great way to end it. We covered so much. Thanks for-

Nic (55:10):
But I love all of y’all. My name is Nick and I’m your friend. It’s true.

David (55:14):
Well, thank you for coming back on. Hope we can have you again soon.

Nic (55:18):
Yeah, I know. Who do I have to talk to to get onto this podcast more frequently?

David (55:22):
I can’t give you that email right now, but I’ll slide to you. I just want to

Nic (55:25):
Sit in these comfy chairs a litle bit more.

David (55:27):
Well, that is all the time we have for today, but make sure to check out our Israel masterclass that we mentioned a couple of times. Check out our website, centerforisrael.com and look at perspective papers to get a deeper dive into theology regarding Israel, Messianic, Judaism and lots of other topics. So we can’t wait to see you next time. We’ll see you soon.