Jerusalem--World Capital
for the Messianic Age
By John D. Garr, Ph.D.

Jerusalem! The city of the Great King. The place which God chose to place his name. Jerusalem! The geographical center of the earth, the focal point of the world's history and of the world's future. Jerusalem! The joy of the whole earth! The very mention of its name brings joy and awe to all those who love and honor Yahweh, the eternal God of heaven and earth, whether they be Torah-observant Jews or Bible-believing Christians. Jerusalem! The City of Peace. The most prayed-for city in the history of the world, with thousands, yes millions of Jews and Christians interceding the city's peace in obedience to the explicit word of God in Psalm 122:6. Jerusalem! The Holy City--so called because the very topography of Jerusalem is sacred ground to three of the world's great religions, where even the stones cry out in testimony to God's dealings with his people for more than thirty centuries.

Jerusalem! The city of the scriptures, from which the Word of God goes forth (Isaiah 2:3), a city mentioned no less than 800 times in the Bible. The Israeli government is now promoting Jerusalem 3000, the tri-millennial celebration of the adoption of this city as the capital of world Jewry. It was around the year 1,000 B.C.E. that King David conquered the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, and, in a stroke of political genius, chose this particular location as his capital city because it was not situated within any of the territories of the twelve tribes and therefore could not be a matter of tribal controversy.

In what is also a unique coincidence, Christians have cause for celebration of their own, the bi-millennial commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, for it was around two thousand years ago in 4 or 5 B.C.E. that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, just a scant five miles south of Jerusalem. And, it was just over 3,000 years ago that David himself was born in this same town of Bethlehem.

City of Peace, History of Violence

The name Yerushalayim (Jerusalem transliterated) probably means people, house, or habitation of peace, with Yeru being a segolate noun meaning men or people and hence, house or habitation (Genesius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament). At any rate, the central portion of the name is Salem which means peace. From the pages of the most ancient of recorded history to the headlines of today's newspapers, however, Jerusalem, the City of Peace, has been the scene of continuing violence as a veritable parade of princes, kings, megalomaniacs, despots, religious leaders, messianic pretenders, and zealots of different religious faiths have vied for dominance over this area. More wars have been fought and more acts of terrorism have been unleashed in and around this city than perhaps any other place on earth. One could ask why. Why this unrelenting and methodical bloodletting and mayhem over one piece of real estate? In its earliest history, the answer was one of strategic importance. In the past two thousand or more years, however, the answer has been the religious significance of this land and this city.

Because it has been identified as a piece of real estate that is chosen by the God of the universe himself, Jerusalem has been a focal point of the ongoing conflict between good and evil, between the angels of light and the angels of darkness, between God and Satan. Indeed, there have been more battles waged in the heavenlies themselves over this city than have shed human blood on the earth. The answer is simple: Satan hopes to foil God's plan one day to make Jerusalem the capital of a world without sin and depravity, the capital of the Messianic kingdom. And, he has used and continues to use men and false religious hopes to breed continuing foment that stands against God's ultimate determination for Jerusalem to be the foundation of world peace (one of the possible meanings of the word Jerusalem).

Strategic Importance

Situated on the land bridge at the confluence of three continents, Jerusalem from ancient times was of considerable strategic importance to the empires around it that vied for dominance in this vital area. Control of Israel was necessary to insure the free flow of commerce to Asia, Europe and Africa. For this reason alone, Jerusalem, though named the habitation of peace, has been the scene of much bloodshed and violence.

In the most ancient of times, Jerusalem was a royal city of the Canaanites (Joshua 10:1; 15:8). It was one of a conglomeration of political entities caught between the conflicting powers of Egypt and the Hitties in Asia Minor. There is archaeological evidence that ancient Jerusalem was a significant center of commerce, even trading with the Mycenaens in ancient Greece. As such, there is clear understanding of why it changed hands so many times during the Canaanite period between the Amorites of the Syro-Arabian desert and the Jebusites, the Semitic people from whom David conquered the city.

The topography of Jerusalem also made it strategically important. This city was defensible and had an adequate water supply. Since the ancient city of Jerusalem was actually south of the walled city that can be seen today, it was situated atop a ridge that was protected on three sides by steep valleys, the Hinnom Valley on the south and west, the Tyropean on the west and the Kidron on the east. Only the northern side of Jerusalem was vulnerable and the cause of great consternation to a series of nervous defenders from various nations and faiths. The Gihon spring was a constant source of water. Israel and Jerusalem's strategic importance is clearly understood when one considers the great amount of resources and energy that ancient empires expended to gain and maintain control of this area. Some of the great armies of history marched against the city and its people. In 587 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar led the great military machine of Babylon in conquering Jerusalem and destroying the temple. Tradition has it that when the Babylonians burned the temple, the great amounts of gold in the sanctuary melted and ran down into the cracks between the stones of the city, whereupon the invaders simply dismounted the city stone by stone to get at the gold. Later, Alexander the Great's mighty military machine brought Greek control to the city and an ongoing attempt at Hellenization which caused the deaths of countless Jewish patriots, including those who suffered under the Selucids in the time of the Maccabees. Then in 70 C.E. Titus led the Roman legions that finally conquered Jerusalem and again destroyed the holy temple, this time killing and scattering the leaders and bureaucracy of the sacrificial cult so that it has never been restored to its former glory. The Roman procurators were among the most ruthless of history in maintaining their control of this land and its people.

Each of these wars was waged by foreign powers seeking to gain or maintain control of this strategic land bridge between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Jerusalem has, indeed, been--and continues to be--a "burdensome stone" to the nations (Zechariah 12:3).

Earliest Religious History

The religious significance of Jerusalem extends to the time of Abraham, a successful businessman, a Babylonian by birth and an Assyrian by nationality. At the age of seventy-five, he heard God's voice saying to him, "Go for yourself from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you." Immediately he left Haran of Assyria and crossed over the river Euphrates, entering into a covenant with Yahweh to become the first Hebrew (literally ivri from the word eber which means to "cross over"). He traversed the lendth and breadth of the land of Israel, a land which was promised to him and his descendents as a part of God's unilateral covenant with the man of faith who had become his friend. He "was looking forward to a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10).

Tradition has it that it was at the site of Jerusalem, possibly on the very stone on which the sacrifices of the later temple were offered, that Abraham made the most extreme manifestation of his absolute faith in the God who had called him. The sacrifice of Isaac (Aqedat Yitzhak) in which Abraham bound his son of promise to the altar and offered him to the Lord, sanctified this place and established the principle in Judaism of vicarious atonement. This foundational event for Judaism also prefigured the time when God himself would offer his only begotten Son in this same area as the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the entire world.

Jerusalem could well have also been the city of the king/priest Melchizedek, that enigmatic personality who was not preceded in kingship by his parents but was installed by the hand of God himself. He was the King of Salem (Gen. 14:18) the ancient Jebusite name for Jerusalem, a name that was still used for the city of Jerusalem in the time of David (Psalm 76:2). It was to Melchizedek as priest (and perhaps in this place) that Abraham came and tithed his increase in an act that was to be central first to Judaism and then to the Christian faith that emerged from Judaism's matrix. It was to the everlasting priesthood of Melchizedek that David predicted God would return when the Messiah would become a "priest forever" (Psalm 110:4) a role to which Jesus was exalted following his victory over death (Hebrews 6:20).

Centuries of Religious Fervor

Since Abraham is revered as the progenitor of three great monotheistic world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it is only natural that the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem should have great significance to all three faiths. And so it is. Judaism and the corporate body of the Jewish people recognize Jerusalem as their capital city. The Jewish people were given title to the land and to the city in the greatest real estate transaction of history when God covenanted with Abraham and said, "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates . . . " (Genesis 15:18). The capital of Solomon's kingdom, the site of two great temples, the cradle of rabbinic Judaism, Jerusalem for three thousand years has been and remains the world capital of Judaism and world Jewry.

Christians recognize Jerusalem as the site of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and the empowerment of the church on the day of Pentecost, the place where the gospel was first preached and where the church was first established. It is the place where millions of Christians can visit the sepulchre in which tradition says Jesus was entombed and from which he resurrected. It is here that Christians can visit the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives from which Jesus ascended into heaven. It is for this reason, as well as for its pre-Christian history as the City of God, that Jerusalem is sacred to Christians.

Islam, following Mohammed's mistaken version of history, believes that Abraham offered Ishmael on the rock of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. They also believe that it was from this very stone that Mohammed took flight into heaven itself. For this reason, the Mosque of Omar that covers this rock is called the Dome of the Rock, and Jerusalem is the third holiest of all cities in the Moslem faith. The Dome of the Rock has remained essentially unaltered for over thirteen centuries. Because of the Moslem traditions about the city, Jerusalem has been the focus of repeated calls for jihad, holy war against both the Jews and the Christians who have controlled the land and the city.

Unfortunately for the city and the Jewish people, its rightful inhabitants, it has been the scene of unrelenting religiously motivated violence. During the Middle Ages, Christians and Moslems launched wars to gain control of the Holy City, wars in which thousands of innocent people perished in the religious madness of both the "Christian" crusaders and the Moslem jihadists. Many of these innocent men, women, and children were Jews caught in "no man's land" between the inflamed passions of Christians and Moslems. The Christians reasoned, "Why should we kill only Mohammedans when the Jews are also infidels and deserve to die because they are the 'Christ Killers.' " The Moslems came to hate the Jews for their intransigent unwillingness to convert to the faith of Mohammed. The result was murder and mayhem, part of Satan's strategy to effect genocide upon the Jews and thwart the prophetic purposes of God. In more recent times, Jerusalem has been marked with terrorism directed against the Jewish people by the Palestinians who also claim title to the city and the land. Again, as God has moved to favor Zion and his ancient people, the Jews, by bringing them to their own land in the fulfillment of this prophetic promises of old, Satan has incited the people of Islam to stand against God's purposes, prevent the fulfillment of his Word, and postpone the Messianic Age.

Jerusalem and Christian Ambivalence

Historical Christianity--and particularly Christendom--has tended to define itself vis-a-vis Israel and Judaism rather than in the context of the ancient land and the ancient faith. It has emphasized the discontinuity of its New Testament in contradistinction to the Old Testament, when in fact, the New Testament is merely a "renewed" testament that extended Judaism, the faith of God, and citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel to the world on the basis of the completed sacrifice in the person of Jesus Christ. Because the majority of Christianity has adopted a supersessionist view toward the Jews and Judaism, the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem have become subjects of great ambivalence among Christian leaders, clergy, and laypersons. "The Jews are no longer entitled to the land of Israel because God ended his covenant with them when they rejected Jesus as the Messiah," many Christians reason. "Jerusalem should be taken from the control of the Jews and internationalized," say others. "The Palestinians and the Moslems in general have as much right, perhaps more, to 'Palestine' and Jerusalem as the Jews do," others argue. These views tend to be espoused by liberal theologians and churchmen who place little value on the Biblical record and who extol the virtues of peace and justice (but at what price to the Jewish people?).

On the other hand, there are those who believe that God's covenant with the Jews remains intact, including his promises to their forefathers regarding title to the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Among these are those who believe that Judaism and Christianity are equally valid ways to salvation, one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles. Then, there are those who believe that the prophecies of the scriptures regarding the people and the land of Israel are being fulfilled in preparation for the return of Jesus, however, these Christians see little connection between these events in natural Israel and the church, which is simply awaiting rapture to heaven to
avoid the ultimate crises that their eschatological scenarios predict for Jerusalem and the Jewish people.

What should the position of the church be toward the Jewish people, toward Judaism toward Israel and toward Jerusalem? In this time of international uncertainty and ambivalence, surely there is a clear rock of divine revelation on which believers can build a right and divinely ordered perspective on the Middle East.

Christians and Jews: A Shared History and a Shared Destiny

When asked by Christians, "What have you and we in common," the great Martin Buber replied, "A book and an expectation." To this assessment, perhaps we should now add, "A land and a city." Israel and Jerusalem are not the exclusive province of the church and Christianity, as medieval church leaders would have had it. They are uniquely titled to Abraham and his fleshly descendents. Christians have not been chosen in the economy of salvation to replace the Jews and to assume title to their God-given land and its eternal capital city, Jerusalem. They have been chosen (I Peter 2:9) to be grafted into the olive tree of Israel's corporate salvation (Romans 11:17), to partake of the nourishing sap of the root of faith in that olive tree, and to become naturalized citizens by adoption (Galatians 4:5) into the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:12-16). Believers share, not by divine congenital birthright, but by spiritual rebirth in the promises of God to Israel, including those of the land. In the Messianic Age, when the tent of David is fully restored (Amos 9:11, 12) the Gentiles will be full participants with Israel by coming up with acceptance on Yahweh's altar (Isaiah 60:7, l0). Christians, then, share in the responsibility to pray and work for the peace of Jerusalem. They are called upon by the Hebrew scriptures and by the apostolic writings to pray for the Jewish people, the land of promise, and the city where God has placed his name (Isaiah 40:2; Psalm 122:6).

God's Perspective On Jerusalem

What does God himself think about Jerusalem? Here is what his Word says: "I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy . . . for Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth . . . behold, I create new heavens and a new earth . . . I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people . . . Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her . . . Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river . . . " (Zechariah 1:14; Isaiah 62:1; 65:17; 66:10, 12).

Jerusalem is the place where God chose to place his name, a name of which he is intensely jealous (II Kings 21:4). Some Jewish scholars have suggested that the topography of the city of Jerusalem actually bears the imprint of the name of God in that the three valleys which surround and intersect the city of Jerusalem seem to form the Hebrew letter shin, the first letter of the Hebrew name for God, Shaddai, and the letter which stands for God on mezzuzot on the doorposts of every observant Jewish home.

In Zechariah 12:2,3 God declares his intentions regarding Jerusalem in its relationship with the nations of the world: "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered against it." What clearer or more definitive word could God give to the nations of the world? All people who assume a posture of opposition to God's purposes with his people and his city will be cut into pieces. Though this prophecy is directed particularly toward the end of the age, it is a clear manifestation of God's intentions throughout history for his city. "I will curse them that curse you," Yahweh told Abraham (Genesis 12:3). And every nation and people that has chosen to be aligned against Jerusalem has known failure and defeat.

Jerusalem and The Messianic Age

Teddy Kolleck, a longtime mayor of the city of Jerusalem once said, "I have the most difficult job in the world: preparing the capital city of the world for the coming of the Messiah." Then, he offered this aside: "When the Messiah comes, I want to ask him the same question that I have asked many pilgrims to Jerusalem: 'Is this your first time to be here, or have you been before?' " This anecdote illustrates the expectation that Christians have shared with Jews for nearly two millennia. For centuries prior to the time of Jesus Christ, the Jewish people had long embraced expectations of an age of universal peace, the time of Messiah. Since that time, both Jews and Christians have shared the same expectation of the Messianic Age. Jews have patiently and longingly awaited the coming of the Messiah while Christians continually cried, "Maranatha," expecting the return of Messiah Jesus.

The expectation of Messiah's coming to usher in an age of universal peace is as old as the Bible itself. Though the concept became more refined in much later times, Adam and Eve were promised the birth of a son who would "bruise the serpent's head." Those who truly believe in the God of the Bible--and in his process of revelation in Holy Scripture--must recognize the recurring theme of the Messianic Age from the apocalypticism of both Old and New Testaments. In contradistinction to the view espoused by Greco-Romanism and eastern monism that history is cyclical and causal (an unending chain of repetitive events which precipitates other events, ad infinitum) the faith of the Bible has always viewed history as being linear and covenantal (beginning somewhere [creation], traveling along a direct path toward an ending [the Messianic Age] and determined solely by God's unilateral covenants with his people). The coming of the Messiah is an absolute requirement of the Jewish view of history, for everything that has happened and will happen only prepares the stage for that final event of history, when "time will be no more" (Revelation 10:6).

Apocalypticism and the expectation of the eschaton were very much a part of the theological and liturgical scene of the first century church. The teaching of the apostles on the chiliasm could not have been more clearly articulated than in the words of the apostle John in the apocalypse, beginning with the majestic appearance of the Messiah riding the white horse of victory (Revelation 19:11-16), continuing through the time when the resurrected righteous rule with the Messiah over the earth for the duration of the Sabbatical Millennium, and concluding with the time when there will be "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev.21:1).

Much of Christianity lost its Messianic expectation, however, with the introduction of amillennialism into the doctrine of the church. By the time of Augustine, the church had come to think of itself as the politico-spiritual kingdom of God which would gradually conquer the earth. For Bible believing Christians however, the incontrovertible evidence of history is that man cannot bring universal peace and brotherhood through his own volition. Though he is responsible for working toward that lofty goal, it will be realized only when the Messiah comes.

A Capital City for the Whole World

When Messiah comes, he will not establish the capital of the world in New York, London, Moscow, Zurich, Bejing, Tokyo or Mecca. The word of prophecy is just as sure as ever on this issue: "Then shall the Lord go forth . . . and his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the East . . . and it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whose will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain" (Zechariah 12:3,4,16,17). The capital of the world for the Messianic Age will be Jerusalem, the city of the great king.

The system that will be employed by the Messiah during the age of peace will not be communism, socialism, American democracy, totalitarianism or any other human invention. World government will be patterned after the Judaism which is revealed in the pages of the Hebrew scriptures. If this is true--and we have God's Word on it--then Christians today should be preparing for that time by restoring the principles of Biblical Judaism to their lives. They should be reclaiming their rightful heritage in the faith of Jesus and the apostles by embracing their own Jewish roots and Hebrew foundations. Those who are presently following the leading of the Holy Spirit to do so are discovering the rich, nourishing sap of the olive tree into which they have been grafted through faith in Jesus Christ. They are growing to love the Jewish people, the land of Israel and their future capital city, Jerusalem.

Where are the Christians today who will "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" and prosper for doing so? Where are the believers who when they perceive faults and failures in the Israeli government will weep over the city as did Jeremiah and Jesus?

Where are the Christians who will claim their heritage in Judaism and with the Jewish people, a legacy of which they have been deprived for some eighteen centuries? Where are the Gentile Christians who will say to the Jewish people as did Ruth of old, "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me" (Ruth 1:16,17)? Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, God is seeking righteous Gentiles who will make such an affirmation, confirming their identity with and among the ancient people of God and joining with them in awaiting and praying for the coming of the Messianic Age and the establishment of the seat of world government in God's capital city, Jerusalem. In that day, " . . . the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously" (Isaiah 24:23).

Dr. John D. Garr, founder and president of Restoration Foundation, has pioneered research, writing, and teaching on the Hebrew foundations of Christian faith for more than thirty years. He is internationally acclaimed as one of the leading authorities on the historical and theological emergence of Christianity from the matrix of Judaism. John and his wife Pat, with the support of their sons John, Timothy, and Stephen, are working to establish Restoration Foundation offices in Atlanta, GA.

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