The catalyst for this article was my search for a piece on the views of the Wesleys — the founders of Methodism — on the Jewish people and their restoration. A very good article by Asbury Seminary professor Nicholas Railton, Charles Wesley and the Jews, turned up in my search. I had not really looked into this before, but several of Charles Wesley’s hymns pointed clearly to the restoration of the Jewish people. I was right, and Railton’s article confirms a very robust affirmation in Charles Wesley. See the link here: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2638&context=asburyjournal
One of the pervasive myths now gaining new traction on social media is that belief in the election of the ethnic Jewish people is a theological aberration of recent origin, traceable to John Nelson Darby in the mid-19th century (the founder of Dispensationalism). Tucker Carlson, who now platforms antisemites, has asserted this as well — going so far as to call Christian Zionism a “brain disease.” He is no biblical theologian. But more credible voices repeat this falsehood too, among them Munther Isaac of Bethlehem Bible College. One of the most common errors across many fields of knowledge is putting forward theories and narratives that fail to account for all the evidence. In the theory of knowledge, we call this the criterion of comprehensiveness (see my book The Biblical World View: An Apologetic).
The history of the historic Protestant Evangelical view on Israel is somewhat complex. Yes, there were Protestants who continued to teach that the Church was the Israel of God and had superseded ethnic Israel, which was no longer God’s elect people. But many Protestant thinkers and biblical theologians disagreed.
Back to the Bible
The Reformation was a back-to-the-Bible movement. Its doctrine of grounding all teaching in Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) meant that many came to their understanding by reading the Bible in context and accepting the plain meaning of the text — unless the text itself indicated analogy or symbol. One of the finest books on this subject is The Puritan Hope by Iain Murray, which surveys Puritan thought from the late 1500s through the 1600s. Murray argues that the consensus affirmed the continued election of ethnic Israel and their eventual turning to the Lord — and several Puritans argued for a literal return to the Land. English Puritans like Elnathan Parr and Samuel Rutherford were very clear on this. The founder of Harvard, Puritan Increase Mather, could not have been plainer in his exposition of Romans 9–11.
Murray does not extend his account beyond the Puritans, but the story continues. The Lutheran Pietists — Jacob Philip Spener, August Hermann Francke, and the commentator J. A. Bengel — embraced restorationist ideas as well. These men were among the influences on Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who became the leader of the Moravians. His commitment to the Jewish people was passionate; he even planted several Messianic Jewish congregations. He, in turn, influenced the Wesleys.
The Growing Consensus in British Christianity
By the 1800s, these convictions about the election of the Jewish people and their restoration to the Land had gained wide adherents across Great Britain. This was part of the background for the joint German Lutheran Pietist–Anglican effort to found Christ Church near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem (ministry beginning in 1842, the center completed in 1849). The British Parliament passed legislation to establish this church. Queen Victoria was involved and endorsed it. The project was undertaken in anticipation of the Jewish people’s return to the Land and their coming to faith near the time of the Second Coming. Christ Church in Jerusalem stands today as a monument to that history — and it was certainly among the currents that shaped Britain’s Balfour Declaration supporting a Jewish homeland in the Land. This history is well told in Oskar Skarsaune’s book Israel’s Friend. Sadly, this fine work by the former dean of the Lutheran theological seminary in Oslo exists only in Norwegian.
In any case, all of this history — except for Balfour itself — predates any influence of Darby. I only wish that those who oppose the doctrine of Israel’s restoration would at least tell the truth, rather than advancing a partial and misleading narrative.
Today, even the Roman Catholic Catechism affirms the election of the Jewish people and declares that God’s gifts and call to Israel are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). It cites Romans 9 — “to them belong the covenants.” Does that include the promise of the Land? It is not stated explicitly, but the implication is plain, and some Roman Catholic leaders have said so. The Catechism also ties the return of Yeshua to the Jewish nation’s turning to him (see paragraphs 674 and 839).
So let us be bold. Our view of Israel’s restoration is not some recent aberration — it is a classical Protestant position with deep and distinguished roots. Let us learn this history and defend our theology. For a summary, see my book Passion for Israel.