Posted on 08/10/2006 12:22:56 PM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
A Young Fool encounters Foolishness
Once upon a time, I was but a wee child in Reformed Theology, taking my first baby-steps into the beautiful Cathedral of Calvinism as a young Debater for Jerry Falwell's world-beating Liberty Debate Team (Our Creed: "Defeat Harvard. Defeat Navy. Defeat American Catholic. Defeat everyone. Crush them all, every time, no exceptions. Win every single National Championship, every year.... because as long as we Calvinists keep winning, Jerry won't excommunicate us for being Calvinists!!".)
Since a Debater is always expected to be able to immediately argue either side of any given question, I spent a lot of time in the local used book-store picking up various books on philosophy and theology and politics and economics... anything I could get my dirt-poor hands on for $2 or $3 dollars a copy. Anything to familiarize myself with multiple intellectual perspectives and multiple modes of argumentation.
Now, in the course of my researches, I happened across a little book entitled War Cycles, Peace Cycles by Richard Kelly Hoskins of Lynchburg, Virginia, regarding the short and long-term economic effects of Monetary Expansions and Contractions in the context of fractional-reserve lending. Hoskins was by no means an uneducated fellow (a capable Financial Advisor and Econometricist, some of his works are still occasionally cited today), but I was singularly disturbed by several passages in which he seemed to suggest a Racial component to Fractional-Reserve Lending (which he called "the Babylon System") versus his contrary suggestions for Joint-Venture Lending.
One passage which stood out in my mind read as follows:
The further I read, the more it was apparent to me that Hoskins regarded "Israel" as The White Race, the Adamic Race descended through Abraham, and that all Non-Whites were considered to him to be zuwr "strangers": Pagans at worst, "Samaritan" Christians at best... but never "Israel".
And so, being the young fool that I was, I did what any young fool would do... I looked Dick Hoskins up in the Lynchburg, Virginia phone book, and called him at his house.
I asked him what he would make of my spiritual position -- a Confessing Christian by Faith, mostly Prussian German by Ethnicity, but with a little 1/16 smidgen of Sioux Nation mixed in 3 or 4 generations back on my mother's side.
Hoskins informed me, quite cordially and without any rancor whatsoever, that God considered me to be a mixed-breed Bastard and that "A Bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 23:2) He advised me to marry "one of my own kind".
Well, I decided at that point (even before I knew him to be the godfather of the "Phinehas Priesthood", the most violent expression of the Christian Identity movement) that even if he was a good money-runner, Dick Hoskins' theology was a barrel full of wet, smelly, foolish Scheißdreck, with which I would have no truck whatsoever. The Christian Creed is this: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28, KJV).
Unfortunately, however, "Christian Identity" (derived not from pagan Nazism but rather from its bastard godfather, British Israelism) is not the only theology which Racially divides the Body of Christ into Jew and Gentile, "Israel" and "Not-Israel", Blood and Blood-lines.
Dispensational Zionist Foolishness
The future dispensational kingdom involves a racial prejudice favoring the Jews above even saved Gentiles during the millennium. As such it re-introduces the distinction between Jew and Gentile and replaces Faith with Race as a basis for divine favor. Consider the following citations from leading dispensationalists: (DISPENSATIONAL DISTORTIONS PART TWO, Redemptive History Distortions ~~ Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Th.D.)
However, with the establishment of the New Testament phase of the Church, the distinction between Jew and Gentile has been abolished. This was the whole point of Peter's vision of the sheet filled with unclean animals in Acts 10: "What God has called clean, let no man call unclean." Thus, there is no separate Jewish program exalting them over saved Gentiles. THE CHURCH, which includes Jew and Gentile in one body, is the fruition and culmination of God's promises to the Jews. In evidence of this, we should note that Christians are called by distinctively Jewish names in the New Testament. "He is a Jew, which is one inwardly" (Rom. 2:29). Christians are called "the circumcision" (Phil. 3:3), "the children" and "the seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7, 29), the "Jerusalem which is above" and the "children of the promise" (Gal. 4:24-29). In fact, Christians compose "the Israel of God" for we are a "new creature" regarding which "circumcision availeth nothing" (Gal. 6:16).
Comparing Foolishness with Foolishness
In closing, I ask only (according to the Hebrew logical-interpretive method of "how much the more?")... if the heretical British-Israel/Christian-Identity Racialists pervert True Christianity by dividing the People of God along Racial lines, then how much the more do Dispensationalists also pervert the Word of God and divide the People of God along equally Racialist lines?
Consider the following:
Those aren't Quotations from Richard Kelly Hoskins... granted, they may sound like Christian Identity quotations, but they aren't.
These are nothing less than direct quotations from the leading lights of Dispensationalism in America -- Ryrie, Pentecost, Walvoord, Hoyt, Hunt, Thomas Ice. (I could've quoted Hagee, I suppose, but the man is absolutely freakin' nutbar).
All that I did was to replace "Israel" with "The White Race", and replace "Gentiles" with "Non-Whites".
Does Dispensationalist "theology" destroy the Racial equality of the Body of Christ? What you see is what you get.
God Damn all Racial Theology.
I pray that the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of those who choose to ignore the entirety of scripture, and choose to uphold the interpretation of a man over God's willingness to personally instruct.
To reinforce the point:
Rom 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
1Jo 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
So you, like OP, will not answer my questions on Hosea 3 and won't read my questions close enough to even understand what I asked. Fine, grab yer Liquid Paper and you can white out those verses in 60 seconds.
And Romans 9-11 does not even cite Hosea 3:4-5, does it??
Nah, I'm asking for a summary judgment.
After reading all this and the posts, now I know why I stay out of these discussions.
Granted.
Any appeals must be filed in writing within 10 days of the service of this order.
Court is adjourned.
Well, I'm not a Dispy, so that's not too surpising. I just get accused of it a lot.
However, my position isn't that far from mainline Dispensationalism either--we mostly disagree on the timing of the Rapture and that whole Age of Law/Age of Grace thing (to which I say that salvation has always been by Grace, and Yeshua affirmed the whole Law). And speaking as a (sorta) outsider on this, I can say that most of what you amillennial/post-millennial types accuse Dispensationalism of has absolutely zero to do with the system itself, but rather with the parody of it presented on TV. The reason I bother to get into it on these threads on the Dispy side is that I hate seeing a position misrepresented, and then made mean-spirited fun of.
The Scriptures are clear that even those who reject a false parody of what they think Christ was are still responsible.
Not really. The question didn't even come up in Apostolic times. In the first century, Yeshua dared the Pharisees to convict Him of sin (i.e., breaking Torah), the Apostles kept Torah, the Jerusalem Church was famous for their zealousness for the Torah, and all of them were Jews living within the Jewish traditional norms.
Since then, we've told the Jews that Jesus came to do away with the Torah, that the Apostles condemned those who kept Torah, and that it was heresy to live as a Jew while professing the Jewish Messiah. As I've pointed out before, the Jesus we've presented the Jews with is precisely the one that the Torah commanded them not to follow (cf. Deu. 12:32-13:5).
Suppose a man appeared and claimed to be Jesus Christ. He does miracles and makes prophecies, but he also commands his followers to engage in sexual immorality and to kill those Christians who refuse to follow him. Now, if we refuse to follow this false christ, have we therefore rejected the true Christ? Or by refusing to follow a person who breaks the commands of Scripture and tells others to do the same, have we not shown our fidelity to the true Messiah?
Suppose that we never see this "Jesus," but his followers describe him as a man who teaches us not to keep the Scriptures' commands against sexual immorality and tells them to kill any Christians who do not follow him? Does that change the fact that we know that he is not the Messiah described in Scripture, and that we are right to disobey his followers, even to the point of death?
That's been the situation since about the second century, when the Church rejected its Jewish root to avoid persecution (the Jews being public enemies of the Roman Empire since the two failed rebellions in 70 and 135 AD). We've told them that Jesus broke the Torah--which means that we've blasphemed Him for a sinner. We've told them moreover that He did away with the Torah in the New Covenant, while they could see in their Scriptures (Jer. 31:33) that the New Covenant would confirm the Torah. We've told them that He came to destroy the Jews as a people, where they could see in the Scriptures that the Messiah would come to establish Israel in the land. We've even killed them in His Name.
If we misrepresent the Yeshua the Messiah to someone, present Him as evil to them, and kill them in His Name, then who should God hold responsible for that?
Now, did the Church get everything wrong? No! We rejected Marcionism and retained the Tanakh (the OT) as part of our sacred Scriptures. We taught correctly that Yeshua died for our sins and that salvation is by trusting Him (though we've had some periods when that teaching was almost lost). We've faithfully preserved the NT--and because of that preservation, many Jews today are starting to see Yeshua as one of them! Many of them are even beginning to read His words and teachings and are recognizing a true Rabbi, one who has interpreted the Torah perfectly. And because of that, many are accepting Him as the Messiah--and staying Jewish.
Therefore, I'm not going to run around saying that all Jews who rejected our caricature of Yeshua but who held in their hearts the trust that God would bring the Messiah and who trusted Him to forgive their sins and provide an atonement are "God-haters" and going to hell. I just refuse to pass judgment either way--because if they deserve to go to hell for rejecting this false Jesus, how much more those who blasphemed Yeshua's Name to them? I'll let God figure that one out.
In the meantime, my role in this world is to call the Church to corporate repentence for the sins of the past, to teach about Yeshua correctly from the Scriptures, and to be His light in the world. My refusal to do a hard-sell has nothing to do with a lack of a heart for evangelism--I just find that a hard-sell doesn't work, particularly with those who have, as Sha'ul testified, a real zeal for God, but whose zeal is without knowledge because they have been "blinded in part until the fulness of the Gentiles is come in." I find that by showing respect, being as one circumcised to the circumcised, and speaking to them in their terms that many more doors have opened up to share the Gospel than by trying to convince them that they're going to hell.
And that's why I'm being so hard on OP. I want the Jewish people to know their Messiah-King. I am trying to tear down a wall that we have built up by our lack of love, and OP is putting the stones right back in place by his unbridled tongue. Putting a wall, any wall, between a person and the Messiah is not an act of Christian love, but the ultimate act of hatred.
And I hope that he repents of that soon, for one who hates his neighbor (defined by Yeshua to even include ancestral enemies, as Jews were to Samaritans) has broken every commandment all at once, and I don't want to see my old friend fall under judgment, even temporal judgment.
If you want to have last word on this particular subject, go on ahead, but I suggest that we not hijack this thread with this particular sub-topic, so I'll let it go here.
(rabid liberty stands, gives Hosea a high-five and exits the courtroom)
That will be a $250 fine for high fiveing in the courtroom.
You may pay the clerk on your way out, counsel.
Good day.
"You may pay the clerk on your way out, counsel."
And I being the clerk of the night court will only take cash in small older denominations placed discreetly in an unmarked envelope and left on the table when I turn my head away.
Got change for a Wesley? A dozen Plymouth Brethrens would do the trick.
I would ask for change for a Calvin, but you know that only God can change a Calvinist.
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Trust me - as a recovering Plmyouth Brethren, I can confidently say that this is no misrepresentation.
"I would ask for change for a Calvin, but you know that only God can change a Calvinist."
For that insight, FINE REMITTED. GO IN PEACE AND SIN NO MORE (at least not the boring kind)!!
That's not why I do it, but believe as you will.
Not necessarily. They've been broken off, we've been ingrafted, those elected will be grafted in again - to the same tree - the church.
You still ignore Sha'ul's point: All of the same Israel which is currently enemy to the Gospel, which is currently blinded in part until the full number of the Gentiles have entered Yeshua's Ekklesia--"Israel of the flesh," if you prefer such terminology--and which throughout chapters 9-11 is spoken of in contrast to the Church, will be saved.
Unless you are prepared to show that the Church is blinded in part and the enemy of the Gospel because of the Gentiles, there's no other conclusion one can reach from this text.
I'd have so say its your theolgy that is most racially divisive. Have you ever considered allowing a Jew to define what a Jew is? Have you ever considered Paul didn't speak for MOST Jews? Have you ever considered moving to Europe?
Speaking as someone who has actually read Walvoord, Ryrie, Missler, et al. extensively, yes it is. I suspect you've been exposed to a rather extremist form of Dispensationalism and thought it represented the system--which is no more fair than taking a hyper-preterist and claiming that he represents all pretersts.
Mind you, even mainstream Dispen has its flaws--but they aren't nearly as bad as what you've presented, and all of the above and most other Dispen authors would completely refute dual-covenantism.
Epytomological fallacy: Presuming to force the root source of a word as the absolute meaning of the word in all instances of usage.
Example in the New Testament: ejpivskopo" (Episcopos), Bishop, overseer: Derived from a military term which meant one who looks upon (Epi) closely (Skopos ~scope) i. e. an inspector.
You can see where the trouble can start.
Fact is old friend and nemesis (by derivation), the author of the piece is not a linquist. Were he a linguist, he would not have made such a bone headed statement.
You should read all of Romans to understand what Paul says: We have the same God, we are one people! It is the elect of God who are Israel, and there is one Seed, Jesus Christ and by grace we are saved through faith, as was Abraham.
Ro 10:12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
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