Archbishop Cranmer savages Church of Scotland report

The ever excellent Archbishop Cranmer has posted a scathing rebuttal of the 'theology' underlying a Church of Scotland report. The report recommends a theological position that states,

"Promises about the land of Israel were never intended to be taken literally, or as applying to a defined geographical territory. They are a way of speaking about how to live under God so that justice and peace reign, the weak and poor are protected, the stranger is included, and all have a share in the  community and a contribution to make to it. The ‘promised land’in the Bible is not a place, so much as a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This ‘promised land’ can be found – or built – anywhere."

  Cranmer clearly understands what I am trying to do here at The Almond Rod. To wit: demonstrate that a living faith in Jesus the Christ must accept that God's promises to Israel are essential to our understanding of Jesus as Messiah.

He cites an article in the Jewish Chronicle and also lists an extensive range of facts about the history of the Land. Cranmer's final paragraph reads as follows:

God promised Abraham that his descendants would have a land, and would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Israel is a fulfilment of that promise. We thank the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the restoration of the Jewish people to their land, because it was a promise that He would so. And if that was not a promise, then Jesus is not the long-promised Messiah, and our promised salvation is nullified in a myriad of meaningless metaphors.

Amen to that Your Grace, amen to that.

I nearly forgot. He precedes his report with a superbly ironic image from the days when the Church of Scotland was doctrinally sound and fervently Zionist.

It is the the motto of the Church of Scotland. The image is instantly recognisable as a representation of the Burning Bush and the Latin 'Nec tamen consumebatur' translates as 'Yet it was not consumed'.  If Moses hadn't believed God literally, the Israelites would still be in Egypt!