Here is a guest post from Chris reviewing the sermon by Stuart Olyott we blogged on a few weeks ago.

I was horrified to hear a sermon preached by Stuart Olyott against the Jewish people whilst in the pulpit of his church at Belvidere Road in Liverpool, where he used to be the pastor.  Stuart Olyott is a lecturer at the Evangelical College of Wales and author of a number of Christian books.  Given his position and popularity in the Christian community, one would expect to sense the love and grace of Jesus Christ radiated from such a man.  You would also expect a good, sound knowledge of the Bible.  Sadly, I got the opposite.  It was cold, uninspiring, dull and emotionless.  The content was filled with misused Bible passages and hateful statements.  At the very worst this was a racist and arrogant rant.   On hearing it, I immediately started thinking of 1930s Nazi broadcasts as there was a chilling similarity in tone and temperature.

Olyott starts his message by asking readers if they are ready to die and face their maker, reminding his listeners of judgement to come, with no hint of joy or sadness in his voice.  Well, his sermon may well have pushed even the happiest person over the edge.  His sermon is titled “What About Israel” and is attempting to answer the question “What is a Jew” and how his audience, as Christians, view the State of Israel and the Jewish people in light of the coming of Jesus Christ.

It is important to state that this is not just a theological question.  It is a matter of great importance, not only for understanding God’s purposes for the world but it also affects many lives and the issue of Jewish self-identity and culture is also at stake.  I remember at college many years ago my tutor corrected my ethnic identity on a form from “English” to “British” and I wondered if I had put “Scottish” or “Welsh”, would she have done the same thing.  This is still a sore point, as people from Scotland and Wales are allowed to have a unique identity (and rightly so) but in many places, being “English” is considered racist and wrong.  I have friends from Iraq, Albania, India, China and many other countries and I respect their right to preserve their culture and unique identity that makes them what they are.  Jewish people have this same right to their own culture and identity and Christian theology has historically deprived them of this, causing centuries of hurt and pain which Olyott is perpetuating.

So who are the Jews, according to Olyott?  Apparently “individual Jews, in Gods eyes, are individual believers – Jew or Gentile” and  he spells it very concisely and clearly when he says “The only true Jews are Christians”.  He creates confusion by saying to his audience “This congregation tonight is divided into two: it is divided into Jews and Gentiles, but not physical Jews and physical Gentiles. God sees some who worship him in their hearts. Those are the only Jews [God recognises] in this world.  Everybody else is a Gentile to God”.

So you have people who are Jewish by birth becoming Gentiles, and Gentiles becoming Jewish by faith.  This confusion deprives the Bible of meaning, and also contradicts some of the later statements in his own sermon.  He says towards the end that we “need to keep witnessing to Jews” and “thank God some of our closest Christian friends are Jews”.  But surely, according to his view, all Christians are Jews and why should we witness to Jews if the all the Jews are Christians?   Why does the Apostle Paul say that the gospel is to the “Jew first, and also to the Gentile” in Romans 1:16?  How are we to interpret Romans 15:28:

“They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings” (NIV)

Let’s try to apply Olyott’s view to this passage:

Attempt 1: If the non-Christians have shared in the Christians spiritual blessings, the non-Christians owe it to the Christians to share their material blessings.

Attempt 2: If the Gentiles in the flesh have shared in the spiritual blessings of those who are Jews in the flesh, they owe it to the Jews in the flesh to share their material blessings.

The first statement is simply absurd.  The second statement is too involved and complex and the very fact that the author simply uses “Jew” and “Gentile” according to it’s natural and physical use demonstrates that it has a literal, physical meaning.

What about Romans 2:28, which Olyott has quoted to support his position that all believers are Jews:

28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

The wider context indicates that Paul is talking to those are Jewish in the flesh.  In verse 17 he says “Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God” and that “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (the word “you” as distinct to Gentiles is very clear).  What Paul means in verses 28 and 29 is that a true meaning of Jewishness is having the faith of Abraham in addition to being physically descended from him.  In other words, the “true, spiritual Israel” exists within the physical, national Israel.

Gentiles who trust in Jesus Christ, remain Gentiles even though they enjoy spiritual blessings from the Jewish people.  The very fact that Paul continues to address them as Gentiles in his letters confirms this:

For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry (Romans 11:13)

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles…

Olyott may be trying to veil his hostility to Jewish people, but it clearly comes out in this statement:

Let me tell you some frank things about the earthly nation of the Jews…the wrath of God has come upon them to the uttermost.  The vineyard has been taken from you and given to the Gentiles

The first allusion here is to 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16:

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:  Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men.  Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (KJV)

This tragic translation in the King James Version, and perpetuated by the NIV, is inaccurate.  The New King James Version is more accurate here:

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men.

The NKJV is correct to substitute the word “Judean” where it’s predecessor used “Jew”.  The Greek word often translated “Jew” (“Judaioi”) is also the same word for Judeans. These  were Jews living in Judea. In some instances, the word “Judaioi” is used to refer to “Jews” as opposed to Gentiles. In other instances, it is used to refer to Judeans within the land of Israel. The context can be used to decide which group the writer has in mind. For example, in John 7:1 it states that Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews [Judeans] sought to kill Him. If the writer intended to mean all Jews everywhere sought to kill him, he would not have walked in Galilee either. Later on in John 7:1, it refers to a group where “no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews [or Judeans]. The “no man” that would speak openly were also Jews and therefore it makes more sense to translate this as “Judeans”. It was this group that persecuted Yeshua, not the Jewish people as a whole. 1 Thessalonians 2 is referring to a localised group composed of some Judean Jews and not to all Jewish people in all times and places, contrary to what Olyott wants it to say.

The second allusion Olyott makes is to Matthew 21:43 where the Lord says that “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it”.  The “you” that the Lord Jesus addresses in that verse are not the Jewish people as a whole but the specific leaders he was talking to.  This is confirmed only 2 verses later:

Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. 46 But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet

Christians who interpret the “nation” to whom the kingdom is given as the church, or the Gentiles in Olyotts view.   The “nation” is not clearly identified by the Lord in that passage so Olyott is just reading his own presupposition into the text by jumping to the conclusion that the “nation” is “Gentiles”.  There  is also no basis, either in Scripture or common sense, for calling the Gentiles a “nation” and Gentiles certainly do not bear the fruit worthy of the Kingdom of God.  The “nation” most likely refers to the Jewish nation as opposed to these leaders.

In discussing Romans 11, Olyott states that the remnant of Jews who believe now are “life from the dead” for believing Gentiles, and for the first time shows a slight hint of passion and raises his voice, as if to awaken his audience.  Perhaps he has realised how dull his delivery is but unfortunately he quickly reverts back to his drone monotone.  He keeps referring to the minority of Jews who believe and seems to be content to imply that they will always be a minority.  This demonstrates that he does not want the entire nation to be saved.  He certainly believes in no future physical restoration for them, and implicitly disagrees with those Christians who believe in a future spiritual restoration of them.   He could not make his views any more clear when he said that “God had rejected the nation of the Jews.  God had finished with the Jews as a nation”.   To entertain the idea that “all Israel will be saved” implies that the Jewish race still exist and that God has not finished with them, which contradicts his precious theology.   To suggest that God has finished with Israel is an insult to God’s faithfulness and integrity.  If God can break his promises to Israel, he can break his promises to any of us as he cannot be trusted.   We can rejoice that Olyott is wrong and that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).

Aware that there are many promises of Israel’s physical and spiritual restoration in the Bible, Olyott asks and answers:

What are we to make of [restoration prophecies].  Most of them were fulfilled when the Jews came back from Babylon.  Some of the promises were conditional which became invalid.  The Apostles did not interpret the Old Testament as do some modern scholars, but they did not understand those things.  The prophets were using the language of their day to write about things that they did not understand.  The Apostles interpreted them like this: Whatever the old prophets wrote about the Jew, the apostles, knowing that the true Jews are Christian believers, the apostle interpreted that of the Christian church.  Whatever looked like literal languages was spiritual.

So those prophecies that have already been fulfilled when the Jews came back from Babylon were fulfilled literally but those remaining cannot be fulfilled literally?  Why the inconsistency and the sudden change in the rules of interpretation?  The only real basis I can see is to suit Olyott’s own theological suppositions.

Olyott abuses Acts 2 and Acts 15 in an attempt to justify “spiritual interpretation” and shows his ignorance of the background of the New Testament.  The New Testament was written  entirely by Jewish authors and in the context of first century Judaism.  The Rabbis had a system of interpretation known as midrash, which used typology to illustrate doctrine but did not build doctrine on typology.  There was a literal meaning to a passage which could be used to illustrate a deeper spiritual truth but it never denied the literal, historical meaning.  Examples of this can be found in Galatians 4, where the Apostle Paul uses the historical characters of Hagar as an illustration of bondage and says that “Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia”.  Paul is not denying that Hagar was a historical character but simply using her as an illustration.  The same principle of interpretation is true of Matthew 2:15, where the author uses Israel’s exodus from Egypt as an illustration of Jesus’s exit from Egypt.  In Acts 2, Peter is citing Joel 2 to illustrate that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last days was consistent with Old Testament prophecy.   It was not the fulfilment as Joel did not even mention tongues, and Acts reported no prophecy.  In saying this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel, he was saying that it was like that.  The same is true in Acts 15, where James refers to the prophecy of Amos which promised the rebuilding of God’s tabernacle and Gentile worship in that tabernacle.  James was not saying that this was the fulfilment of the prophecy, but simply using the prophecy to illustrate that Gentiles coming to faith in the God of Israel was clearly taught in the Jewish Scriptures, which was the point of his discussion with the the leaders.  So Olyott says that the Apostles interpreted the restoration prophecies spiritually and then said that “we should do the same”.  In saying that, it almost sounded like he said that “we should do the shame” which would be closer to the truth for him.   Olyott states that “When we come to prophecies about the Jews which were not fulfilled we should apply them to the Christian church”.   But if the principle of interpretation is spiritual, by what standard is the Christian church the recipient of the promises?  By abandoning the literal meaning, you have created a free-for-all interpretation where your own imagination can make it whatever you want!

In Acts 1, the disciples asked Jesus if he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel at that time which indicates that they understood the Old Testament restoration prophecies literally.    In his response, Jesus does not correct them but dignifies their question by implying that it will be done in God’s time.   Olyott does not mention, let alone comment on, this passage in this sermon.

Olyott also says that we need to keep witnessing to Jews, “despite what David Pawson says”.  To my knowledge, David Pawson would be one of the first people to say that we need to witness to Jewish people.  I don’t know what he is referring to here, perhaps somebody could enlighten me as to whether David Pawson has changed his view.  If he has got him mixed up with someone else, that is not only bad scholarship but inexcusably slanderous.   Olyott makes more slurs against the Israeli state:

We should not take any special interest in the State of Israel.  In the Middle East lives are being lost, homes are being stolen.  We dare not say that God is on the side of the state of Israel and not on the side of the Arabs.  How then can you go to the Arab with the gospel?  He is immediately prejudiced because he somehow thinks that Christians are on the side of the regime under which he has to live…we should not identify the gospel with any political system.

This itself is a politically loaded statement which is impossible to unpack completely in this space of this post.  ”Lives are being lost and homes are being stolen” and he says that this is the fault of the Israeli government and nation.  His reference to Israel as “the regime under which he [the Arab] has to live” is loaded with animosity and assumptions which need to be challenged.  Israel in fact operates like America or European countries, trying to defend and provide for it’s citizens and defend itself against aggressors.  The government has the same level of human corruption as the UK or America – no less but certainly no more.  Let us criticise and oppose any atrocity and abuse to the Arabs where it does exist as indeed they also have a right – as individuals – to live their lives peacefully.  I’ve been to Israel where Arabs and Jews have the same freedoms, the same citizenship rights and even operate in the government.  Not everything the Israeli government does is right and they are rightly subject to the same criticisms that other nations are subject to.  Lives are being lost on both sides because of terrorist aggressors determined on their destruction.  Why does Olyott say nothing against the Charter of Hamas, which calls for death for the sake of Allah and the Palestinian National Covenant which incites violence as the only way to make the entire middle East an Arab state?  Because he is one-sided and cares only for the Arabs.  It is good to see how he can show care and concern and love for the Arabs, but chilling when you compare that with the animosity he tries to conceal – unsuccessfully – to the actual Jewish people.

There is also some misunderstanding shown about Christian support for the Jewish state.  It is not wrong for Christians to support the right of Jewish people to have self-identity and self-determination in their own land.  How would Olyott feel if England and Scotland declared war on Wales just to wipe out the Welsh, and Christians across Europe said “we should not concern ourselves with the plight of the Welsh or our Christian brothers in Wales, just concentrate on the Gospel”?

Towards the end, Olyott says “This pulpit has been graced by Ernest Lloyd and men like him, who are Hebrews after the flesh but exemplary Christians”.  Yes, Mr. Olyott, Ernest Lloyd did grace that pulpit but you have DISgraced it.  He ends it by saying that Christians should not devote their energy to getting excited about the state of Israel but should be devoting it to “the Church of Christ, the Church of Christ, The Christ” which he repeats in a very stern and scary way.

Olyott tells his listeners that “every blessing, every covenant, every promise ever given to the people of Israel is yours tonight”.  Wow…wait a minute, does this include the promised curses also or should we just take the blessings like many Christians have done down the centuries?   This sounds more like spiritual identity theft, where you take the bank account and credit cards of somebody else and become rich with it.  So, moving from fraudulent use of the Bible to justify animosity and then stealing the victims identity, this sermon is truly criminal!