Fighting For Real Estate - Part #21: Should Jesus’ Followers Fight for Real Estate?

“The Sad Story of Church History and the Rise of Christian Zionism!”

By Richard Allen – September 1, 2025

For the past seventeen blogs we have examined many passages from the New Testament – in an effort to understand how the New Covenant Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ radically differs from the Kingdom of God under the Old Covenant. It’s not that the Old Covenant Kingdom was wrong or bad.  It was just that the Old Covenant times were a period of “infancy,” or “childhood.”  That period of infancy “foretold” a time of maturity in the New Covenant Age to Come, using shadows and types. Where the Old Covenant clearly required and advocated “carnal weapons” to further the kingdom and protect it, the New Covenant calls for a “spiritual warfare” to bring about “the obedience of the Nations!” The admonition from Paul to the Corinthian Church (who had their own problems with immaturity) was this:

“We fight with weapons that are different from those the world uses. Our weapons have power from God. These weapons can destroy the enemy’s strong places. We destroy men’s arguments. And we destroy every proud thing that raises itself against the knowledge of God. We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

What’s clear is, all Old Covenant warfare was fighting battles “just like the world,” with which they were constantly fighting – those godless gentile tribes and empires all around them!  Early on, God gave them clear warning “not to be like the nations,” especially when the Israelites wanted “fallible human leaders” to lead them (see 1 Samuel 8). The irony is, the early Church of Jesus Christ was admonished: “Not to fight against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers” (Ephesians 6:12).  But within a few centuries, the Church became a political entity, seeking power, prestige and control – just like gentile rulers. By the 5^th Century, the “little flock” of Jesus was almost unrecognizable. They had conquered the Roman Empire by the “conversion” of the Emperor Constantine, and while the persecution stopped, the Church gave up “spiritual ground to gain relief from the persecution they suffered for more than two centuries of the Christian Era.  Crazy, but the church actually grew when it was under physical persecution. Later, when the Church became “the favored religion of the realm,” it was hard to determine if there was real growth. The Church grew in political power and influence, but the Church also became a “salvation factory,” not a place where Gospel Truth was proclaimed.

The sad story from Church History is that it took better than 1,200 years for the Church to finally break free of the “militaristic” view of using “carnal weapons to further Christ’s kingdom.  Even the Catholic Church eventually changed to a strictly religious entity without the more severe trappings of “magisterial power.” But there was a time – both before and after the Protestant Reformation – when the Church of Rome used the “sword of the magistrate” in a lethal way against those who dissented against her doctrine or control. Don’t get me wrong, there are still those among both mainline denominations and evangelical churches, who would like to return to the days when a Pope or Religious Leader held sway over human government – but they are a minority.  What’s most amazing is, many Evangelical Denominations who see the Church as a “strictly spiritual entity” – limited to the “Sword of the Spirit (i.e. the Word of God)” – still believe that physical Israel is called upon by God to use the “Physical Sword” to bring back a reign like that of Solomon!  Again, this is because of “bad theology,” an almost complete “lack of understanding of the New Covenant of Jesus Christ,” and a “blindness regarding the Age of the Spirit” in which we now live.

Dispensational teachers, claiming to “only represent the fulfillment of God’s will and purpose for Israel,” emphatically state that God wants the Church – especially the Church in America – to give unwavering support to the “unbelieving State of Israel,” as they once claimed total political support for the Church!  This era, which ran from approximately the fourth through the seventeenth centuries, saw the advent, decline and end of the Sacral Magisterial Church. The Denominations who took part in this era of Christian Civil Government, were primarily Roman Catholic, with Orthodox and Protestant Churches running a close second. The wars and bloodshed across Europe are a testament to the attempt by all branches of the Church to “wield the power of the magisterial sword,” that is, the State.  Even here in America many of the early settlers believed there was virtually no distinction between the Church and Christian Government. Note, I’m not saying that civil governments are not held accountable to uphold God’s moral law, Romans Chapter 13 says they are.  The Apostle Paul taught that “worldly governments like Rome” were God’s Servants to uphold righteousness:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (Romans 13:1-7).

This is actually startling – seeing that Paul is referring specifically to Rome and Caesar – the very Caesar who would eventually put both Paul and Peter to death.  When we see the modern State of Israel, which is decidedly “not religious,” acting in their own self-interest, is it our God-directed duty to support them? As Senator Ted Cruz stated in a June 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson: “As a Christian, growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, ‘Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.’”  What’s interesting is that Senator Cruz is quoting Genesis 12, a very important passage regarding the Patriarch Abraham:

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3).

Israel wasn’t even a nation at that point.  It wasn’t until Abraham’s grandson Jacob – who was later renamed “Israel” –had twelve sons, that the Nation of Israel was realized.  In the passage from Genesis 12 above, God does say that He’ll make Abraham a great nation and will make his name great. And besides blessing those who bless Abraham and cursing those who curse him, God says that “all the people on the earth will be blessed through you.”  It should be clear that something else is going on. As Christians, we are given to understand the Abrahamic promise – through Paul, the “Authoritative Apostle to the Gentiles,” explaining in both Romans and Galatians:  It is not Abraham’s physical seed, but his spiritual seed – those circumcised in heart – through whom God will work to bless all the peoples of the earth:

“For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God” (Romans 2:28-29).

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree,’ – so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.  To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.  Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring, who is Christ’  ” (Galatians 3:13-16).

Just like the elect Jews who believed in Christ, “we are Abraham’s Children, circumcised in our hearts – having received the Spirit by Faith!”  God’s purpose all along was “in Christ,” to bless all those children in Him – whether Jew or Gentile, those born of the Spirit!  And Jesus was raised to the “right hand of the Father” for the very purpose of fulfilling the promised redemption – to both Jews and Gentiles – giving them the Spirit by Faith!  He now reigns over all things – not for Israel – but For The Church:

“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:15-23).

In closing, we have to ask.  If all of this is Gospel Truth, then “What has given rise to Zionism in our day?”  Or more importantly, “What has given rise to Christian Zionism?”  The simple answer is: The same human desires and frailties that gave rise to the Sacral Magisterial Church of the Dark Ages.  We’ll cover this more in my next Blog!

Soli Deo Gloria