We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful city of God.
Isaac Watts, a prolific hymn writer and congregational minister, wrote that stirring chorus and hymn in 1707.
Zion also turns up in the recent Christ is mine forevermore, by CityAlight, a ministry of St Paul’s Castle Hill in Sydney.
And mine are keys to Zion city
Where beside the King I walk
For there my heart has found its treasure
Christ is mine forevermore
Meanwhile, the term ‘zionist’ to describe a supporter of the existence of the state of Israel is at the heart of heated political debate in our society. Do these two usages overlap, have separate meanings, or are they describing the same thing? Are Christians who sing of Zion, zionists?
Where does ‘Zion’ come from?
Mount Zion is the site of the City of David and the Temple, and Zion has come to mean the larger city of Jerusalem. In Psalm 2, the Lord declares
“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”
Yet in Psalm 137, the exiles sing
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
As in another Psalm, Psalm 51, “May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem.” Zion and Jerusalem are used interchangeably.
Hungarian-born journalist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) became a leader in the movement of seeking a homeland for Jews in Palestine, influenced by the anti-semitic trial of Alfred Dreyfus in France. The term “Zionism” for this movement was first used by another Austrian journalist, Nathan Birnbaum, in 1890, and adopted by Herzl when he founded the Zionist Organisation, later the World Zionist Organisation, in 1897.
Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the term Zionist has come to mean a supporter of the right in the right of existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
A theological question: What do Christians think of Zionism
Zionism, and the occasional use of the term Christian Zionism, raises the question of how Christians use the term and how it lines up with our use of “Zion” in Psalms and songs. Are we talking about the same thing?
Isaac Watts was not talking about the State of Israel when he penned “We’re marching to Zion.” When he wrote “We are marching upward to Zion he was describing the Christian life and the eventual destination of the New Jerusalem.
Here are the last three verses that expound the doctrine – as hymns often do.
The men of grace have found
Glory begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
From faith and hope may grow.
The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Or walk the golden streets.
Then let our songs abound,
And every tear be dry;
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground
To fairer worlds on high.
And City Alights Christ is Mine Forevermore draws from the same reformed theology.
Mine are days here as a stranger
Pilgrim on a narrow way
One with Christ I will encounter
Harm and hatred for His name
But mine is armour for this battle
Strong enough to last the war
And He has said He will deliver
Safely to the golden shore
And mine are keys to Zion city
Where beside the King I walk
For there my heart has found its treasure
Christ is mine forevermore
The promise of a restored Israel, on this understanding, involves Gentiles in the church as the first fruits of the New Jerusalem. This is sometimes called Supersessionism, or replacement theology. /it has been the majority view throughout church history, sometimes regretably fostering anti-semitic thinking.
However, the idea of a New Jerusalem, with worshippers from every nation, is found in many parts of Scripture. For example, in Revelation 21:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had disappeared, and there was no sea anymore. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It was prepared like a bride dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Now God’s presence is with people, and he will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, sadness, crying, or pain, because all the old ways are gone.”
But also forshadowed in the Old Testament, for example, the vision of water flowing from a renewed temple in Ezekiel 47, “The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.” …
And Revelation 22: “He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
And in Ephesians 3, Paul describes a long-hidden secret: “the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the children of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus through the Good News…”
These passages live alongside Romans 9 and 10, which show that the Jews/Israel have a place in God’s plan still, which supports Christians taking an active part in supporting the Jewish people’s welfare.
An alternative theology, sometimes called Apocalyptic Zionism, has the nation of Israel as an essential part of God’s plan. Here’s a summary of its tenets derived from dispensationalism and premillennialism: two theological systems less prevalent in Australia than in the US.
Here are its key tenets, as summarised by Jay W. Richards on the Public Discourse site.
Pretribulational Rapture and Tribulation: Believers are raptured before a seven-year Tribulation, during which Israel is persecuted but ultimately repents and recognises Jesus as Messiah (Revelation 7:4–8 on the 144,000 sealed Jews).
Modern Fulfilment of Prophecy: Modern events like the 1948 rebirth of Israel and the 1967 Six-Day War (recapturing Jerusalem) are seen as fulfilling prophecies of Jewish regathering and control of the holy city (Zechariah 12:2–3; Luke 21:24).
Distinct Future for Israel: God maintains separate covenants with Israel (land, seed, blessing from Abraham—Genesis 12:1–3) and the Church; the Church Age is a “parenthesis” in God’s plan, but Israel will be regrafted into prominence (Romans 11:25–29).
Role of the Third Temple: A rebuilt Temple is essential for end times worship and the Antichrist’s “abomination of desolation” (Matthew 24:15); preparations (e. g., red heifer breeding for purification rituals—Numbers 19) are seen as prophetic signs.
Millennial Kingdom: Christ returns to defeat evil at Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) and rules from Jerusalem for 1,000 years with a restored Temple (Ezekiel 40–48), which fulfils God’s unconditional promises to David (2 Samuel 7).
This writer has seen the influence of this theology shrink in Australia since its Late Great Planet Earth heyday – for example, the Australian Christian Churches removed premillenialism from their statement of faith when they rewrote it in 2021.
At the time of Late Great etc, premillennialists often insisted that the return of Christ would occur within one generation of the founding of Israel, based on Matthew 24:34 (“this generation will not pass away”), seeing Israel’s rebirth as the “budding of the fig tree,” a sign of the last days. The State of Israel will turn 78 this year.
Apocalyptic Zionist theology ties believers into supporting the State of Israel in a full-bore commitment. Some Christians pursue the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and the re-establishment of the sacrifices of the old covenant as somehow essential to the return of Christ. So they bred heifers in preparation. Others will see this as a distraction from seeking to serve Christ in tasks such as evangelism and love of neighbour.
The older reformed theology allows Christians to support the existence of the state of Israel, in the same way they might support other nation-states, and the right to self-determination, but without attaching to it the same amount of theological significance. The existence of a national state of Israel is not a precondition of Jesus’ return, but a new Jerusalem will follow it. At the same time, a kindness towards the Jewish people is what Paul commends in the book of Romans while we look forward to all ethnicities worshipping together.
Image: Jerusalem. Image Credit: Jeffry Surianto / Pexels