Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. PSALM 122:6

Derek Prince was discharged from the army in Jerusalem, married in Jerusalem, raised his first family in Jerusalem, and died in Jerusalem. The city and its people were not one theme among many in his teaching. They were a burden he carried for nearly sixty years. He urged Christians everywhere to accept a responsibility to pray for Israel and for the Jewish people, and he believed that the wider church had largely forgotten a debt it owed. This chapter sets out what he taught, the ground on which almost all Christians can join him, and the places where equally faithful believers part company.

The debt of the Gentiles

Prince began with a truth no Christian can deny. The gospel came to the nations through Israel. The patriarchs, the prophets, the Scriptures, the covenants and the Messiah Himself are all Jewish. Jesus said to a Samaritan woman that salvation is of the Jews.

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises. ROMANS 9:4

Paul, writing to Gentile believers in Rome, warns them against arrogance towards the Jewish people. The Gentiles have been grafted into an olive tree that was not originally theirs. They are supported by the root, not the root by them.

Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. ROMANS 11:18

Prince pressed this with great seriousness, and in the light of the history of Christian anti-Semitism he was right to. For centuries churches taught contempt for the Jews, and the fruit of that teaching was persecution and, in the century of Prince’s own life, genocide. A Christian who has read Romans 9 to 11 cannot hate or despise the Jewish people. He must love them, and pray for them, as Paul did.

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. ROMANS 10:1

God has not cast away His people

Prince also taught, with Paul, that God’s calling of Israel has not been revoked. The apostle asks directly whether God has cast away His people, and answers with the strongest negative he knows.

I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. ROMANS 11:1

As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. ROMANS 11:28–29

Here too, a great many Christians of many traditions would agree. Whatever the future holds, Paul expects a turning of the Jewish people to their Messiah, and he calls the Gentile church to live in the light of that hope with humility and love.

The land and the State

Prince went further, and here Christians divide. He believed that the return of Jewish people to the land of Israel in the twentieth century, and the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, were a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy — of promises such as Ezekiel’s that God would gather His people from all countries and bring them into their own land. He had watched those events at close quarters, and he read them as the hand of God.

For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. EZEKIEL 36:24

He therefore encouraged Christians to support Israel, to stand with the Jewish people, and to understand themselves as having a part in God’s purposes for the nation. This view — often called Christian Zionism — is held by very many evangelical and charismatic believers, and Prince was one of its most thoughtful teachers.

It is fair to set beside it the view of many other Christians, equally committed to Scripture. They hold that the promises of land to Israel find their fulfilment in Christ and in the new creation; that in Him all believers, Jew and Gentile, are Abraham’s seed and heirs of the promise; and that the modern State of Israel, like every other state, is to be judged by the standards of justice God applies to all nations, without special exemption.

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. GALATIANS 3:29

They also point out, with real pain, that uncritical support for any government can blind Christians to the suffering of others in the same land — including Arab and Palestinian Christians, whose communities are among the oldest churches in the world.

This book does not settle the question. It asks only that readers on each side hold their view with humility and charity, knowing that believers they respect hold the other.

Common ground

What can every Christian take from Prince here? A great deal. The command to pray for the peace of Jerusalem stands in Scripture. The debt of the Gentiles to Israel is real. Love for the Jewish people and grief over their long history of suffering at Christian hands are Christian duties. And the desire that Israel should come to know her Messiah was Paul’s own.

Prince’s own family offers a quiet picture of what that love can look like. The household Lydia had gathered in Jerusalem, into which he married, included girls of more than one background. Love for Israel does not require hatred of her neighbours. Jesus wept over the city, and He weeps over all who suffer in it.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! LUKE 19:41–42

The peace of Jerusalem is finally the peace that Christ gives — to Jew and Gentile alike, who are made one in Him.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. EPHESIANS 2:14

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Romans 9 to 11 through at one sitting. Note what Paul feels, what he warns against, and what he hopes for.

2. Examine your heart for any trace of contempt towards the Jewish people. Confess it, and learn something this month of the history of Christian anti-Semitism.

3. Pray this week for the peace of Jerusalem and for the salvation of Jewish people, as Paul did.

4. Pray also for the Arab and Palestinian Christians of the Holy Land by name, and learn something of their churches.

5. If you hold strong views on Israel and prophecy, read a careful presentation of the opposite view by a believer who loves Scripture. Ask what you can learn from it.

A PRAYER

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I thank You that through Israel You gave the Scriptures and the Saviour to the world. I owe a debt I cannot repay.

Forgive the church for every contempt it has shown to the Jewish people. Root out of my own heart any pride against the natural branches.

I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and for all who live in the land, Jew and Arab, believer and unbeliever. Let the Prince of Peace be known there.

Give me love without partisanship, conviction without contempt, and a heart that weeps where Jesus wept. Amen.