Posted on 10/26/2007 9:00:59 PM PDT by topcat54
Replacement theology has become dispensationalism's latest prophetic boogeyman. If you want to end a debate over eschatology, just charge your opponent with holding to replacement theology. What is “replacement theology,” sometimes called “supersessionism,” and why do dispensationalists accuse non-dispensationalists of holding it? Here’s a typical dispensational definition:
Replacement Theology: a theological perspective that teaches that the Jews have been rejected by God and are no longer God’s Chosen People. Those who hold to this view disavow any ethnic future for the Jewish people in connection with the biblical covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1
“Replacement theology” is dispensationalism’s trump card in any debate over eschatology because it implies anti-semitism. Hal Lindsey attempted to use this card in his poorly researched and argued The Road to Holocaust.2 He wove an innovative tale implying that anyone who is not a dispensationalist carries the seeds of anti-semitism within his or her prophetic system. This would mean that every Christian prior to 1830 would have been theologically anti-semitic although not personally anti-semtic.
As Peter Leithart and I point out in The Legacy of Hatred Continues,3 it’s dispensationalists who hold to a form of replacement theology since they believe that Israel does not have any prophetic significance this side of the rapture! Prior to the rapture, in terms of dispensational logic, the Church has replaced Israel. This is unquestionably true since God’s prophetic plan for Israel has been postponed until the prophetic time clock starts ticking again at the beginning of Daniel’s 70th week which starts only after the Church is taken to heaven in the so-called rapture. Until then, God is dealing redemptively with the Church. Am I making this up? Consider the following by dispensationalist E. Schuyler English:
An intercalary4 period of history, after Christ’s death and resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, has intervened. This is the present age, the Church age. . . . During this time God has not been dealing with Israel nationally, for they have been blinded concerning God’s mercy in Christ. . . . However, God will again deal with Israel as a nation. This will be in Daniel’s seventieth week, a seven-year period yet to come.5
According to English and every other dispensationalist, the Church has replaced Israel until the rapture. The unfulfilled promises made to Israel are not fulfilled until after the Church is taken off the earth. Thomas Ice, one of dispensationalism’s rising stars, admits that the Church replaces Israel this side of the rapture: “We dispensationalists believe that the church has superseded Israel during the current church age, but God has a future time in which He will restore national Israel ‘as the institution for the administration of divine blessings to the world.’”6
Dispensationalists claim that their particular brand of eschatology is the only prophetic system that gives Israel her proper place in redemptive history. This is an odd thing to argue since two-thirds of the Jews will be slaughtered during the post-rapture tribulation, and the world will be nearly destroyed. Charles Ryrie writes in his book The Best is Yet to Come that during this post-rapture period Israel will undergo “the worst bloodbath in Jewish history.”7 The book’s title doesn’t seem to very appropriate considering that during this period of time most of the Jews will die! John Walvoord follows a similar line of argument: “Israel is destined to have a particular time of suffering which will eclipse any thing that it has known in the past. . . . [T]he people of Israel . . . are placing themselves within the vortex of this future whirlwind which will destroy the majority of those living in the land of Palestine.”8 Arnold Fruchtenbaum states that during the Great Tribulation “Israel will suffer tremendous persecution (Matthew 24:15–28; Revelation 12:1–17). As a result of this persecution of the Jewish people, two-thirds are going to be killed.”9
During the time when Israel seems to be at peace with the world, she is really under the domination of the antichrist who will turn on her at the mid-point in the seven-year period. Israel waits more than 2000 years for the promises finally to be fulfilled, and before it happens, two-thirds of them are wiped out. Those who are charged with holding a “replacement theology viewpoint” believe in no inevitable future Jewish bloodbath. In fact, we believe that the Jews will inevitably embrace Jesus as the Messiah this side of the Second Coming. The fulfillment of Zechariah 13:8 is a past event. It may have had its fulfillment in the events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Contrary to dispensationalism’s interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus' disciples warned the Jewish nation for nearly forty years about the impending judgment (Matt. 3:7; 21:42–46; 22:1–14; 24:15–22). Those who believed Jesus’ words of warning were delivered “from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). Those who continued to reject Jesus as the promised Messiah, even though they had been warned for a generation (Matt. 24:34), “wrath has come upon them to the utmost” (1 Thess. 2:16; cf. 1 Thess. 5:1–11; 2 Pet. 3:10–13).
Before critics of replacement theology throw stones, they need to take a look at their own prophetic system and see its many lapses in theology and logic.
Read Part Two of this article...
2. Hal Lindsey, The Road to Holocaust (New York: Bantam Books, 1989). The address for Bantam Books is 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.
3. Gary DeMar and Peter J. Leithart, The Legacy of Hatred Continues: A Response to Hal Lindsey’s The Road to Holocaust (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 1989).
4. Inserted into the calendar.
5. E. Schuyler English, A Companion to the New Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 135.
6. Thomas Ice, “The Israel of God,” The Thomas Ice Collection: www.raptureready.com/featured/TheIsraelOfGod.html#_edn3
7. Charles C. Ryrie, The Best is Yet to Come (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1981), 86.
8. John F. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1962), 107, 113. Emphasis added.
9. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, “The Little Apocalypse of Zechariah,” The End Times Controversy: The Second Coming Under Attack, eds. Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2003), 262.
Right, especially when one event will have any number of different headlines depending on who owns the media and what the agenda is. Shifting sands
If either of you know what Rapmaster Q is talking about, then a tip o’ the hat to ya.
Recognizing Scriptural predictions in daily news headlines is merely good Biblical awareness; good horse sense . . . as well as obedience to Christ's exhortations.
Replacementarians can rebel against Christ's exhortations, if they wish. As for me and my house, we shall serve The Lord.
Beats me
Why is that necessary when scripture speaks for itself and for me --
Right. And so why are you asking me to explain Matthew 12 to you?
Rev. 12 speaks of the final rejection of Satan from heaven.
Nothing in Luke 10 states that the fall of Satan from heaven was the final one.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Christ didn't defeat Satan and his forces.
The question is, is he and those same forces still active today while Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool?
When did all of the above happen?
Are you saying that no Christians were Jews in the first century?
Now don't get goofy on me!
In Matthew Christ is speaking to Jews,not Christians.
[ Why would Christians be concerned about fleeing on the sabbath? ]
Well for one thing, Jewish Christians in and around Jerusalem would have had to contend with all the Sabbath restrictions placed on the citizens of ancient Israel. For example, the NT speaks of things like "a Sabbath day’s journey" (Acts 1:12). According to rabbinic tradition based on multiple OT texts, this distance was only about 2000 cubits (1000 yards). It would have been very difficult to "flee to the mountains" to escape the armies of Rome given this restriction. However, to counter your futurist perspective, looking at modern secular Israel today, why would anyone care about whether or not they were traveling on the Sabbath? These OT commands are largely ignored in modern times. Certainly no one in Israel today is limited to traveling only 1000 yards on the Sabbath. Jesus’ words were obviously meant for an ancient time.
No, a Christian would not be concerned about fleeing on a sabbath day, once it was revealed to him that those days meant nothing, as they had by 70AD.
As for Jews, there are still a large segment of religious Jews who take the sabbath very seriously and do not even press an elevator button on it.
If Jesus did this how did Moses and Elijah appear to him at the transfiguration?
The same way Samuel appeared to Saul, they were allowed to leave it.
They didn't move permanently until after Christ freed them and took them to heaven.
No Saint was allowed to reside in heaven until Christ had paid for their sins.
I think part of the problem is the definition of "Christian". All the patriarchs had a hope in the redeemer of God’s people. That redeemer we know as Jesus Christ. Regarding Abraham, the father of the faithful, Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." (John 8:56) In whatever sense Abraham saw the day of Jesus Christ he was a "Christian". The problem I think is with the tripartite view of humankind; Jew/gentile/ Christian, vs. the more prevalent biblical view of two groups, the righteous and the unrighteous. Messianics don’t like to be called "Christian" because it is too gentile. Do we now need a fourth category; Jew/gentile/ Christian/Messianic? When are we going to stop dividing the people of God among various unimportant labels? Are believing Abraham and David my brothers in the faith, or is their faith so radically different from mine that we do not both share the same adoption as sons of God? I think the implications of the latter position on soteriology are enormous.
Well, that definition is very important since there are some real distinctions.
Noah and Abel were not Jews.
Abraham and David were not Gentiles.
Each, while the part of the family of God has a different inheritance promised to them.
The Christians likewise is also distinct.
No one in the Old Testament ever was said to have the Holy Spirit indwelling them making their bodies the temple of God himself.
A Christian is part of the family of God, but he is also different from the other two members, Jew and Gentile.
Today when one is saved,he becomes a Christian, a part of the body of Christ and his bride.
His body is now the temple of the Holy Ghost and all three members of the Trinity indwell him.
David prayed that the Holy Spirit not be taken from him, no Christian ever has to make that prayer.
I'm not. Matthew 12 doesn't know anything about when Satan was bound [which is the question you can't answer]
You can torture Matthew 12, stretch and twist its sinews, dump it in boiling water, and beat it with lashes, but it can't answer that question because it knows nothing about Satan's binding and/or the Millenium.
So why do you pretend that it does???
No, the more overt forms of demonic activity are very much evident in the primitive religious areas of the world, such as India and Africa.
In the areas with more civilization, it is more subtle.
But the criteria doesn't change. You are either washed by the blood of Jesus or not.
Yes, but the results of ones faith does change.
A person who believes today his body becomes a temple of the living God.
That is uniquely a Christian blessing, and it not given to the other saints.
[ David was not a Christian, Abraham wasn't, Moses wasn't, Noah wasn't, Abel wasn't, they were Jews and Gentiles. ]
But they lived by faith. Hebrews 11:39-40 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. In dispensationalism is there a belief that those of the old testament period did not have to have Faith in the coming Messiah to be saved?
That is not what we are talking about.
We are talking about what makes a Christian distinctive from the Jew or Gentile of the OT.
Today, a Christian has something that had never been given or will be given again, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit making his body a living temple. (1Cor.3:16)
When the Rapture occurs and anyone is saved after that, that will not occur with them, they will be either a saved Jew or saved Gentile, not a Christian.
In the areas with more civilization, it is more subtle.
= = =
LOL.
I wouldn’t call
SHRILLERY more subtle.
But, yeah, the ‘beautiful face of evil’
is slicker in our culture.
But even here . . . raping 2 year olds is not more subtle either. Killing classmates is not more subtle.
We’ve likely always had sex in parks . . . but it’s significantly worse. Ditto men’s rooms.
Matthew was written to a primarily Jewish audience. That does not mean it was written exclusively to Jews in some future imaginary time and place. Remember, the Olivet Discourse, for example, was precipitated by His disciple, i.e., Jewish Christians. He was answering their question and the answer was relevant for them.
For example, we have seen how Luke in his gospel interprets the Hebrew phrase "abomination of desolation" for the gentile readers. Same message, same intention, different audience.
We see the same thing with the "kingdom of" phrases. Matthew consistently uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven" while Luke uses "kingdom of God" to speak of exactly the same things. The examples are too numerous to mention all of them:
"From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’" (Matt. 4:17)"Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.’" (Mark 1:14,15)
"Another parable He put forth to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,’" (Matt. 13:31)
"Then He said, ‘To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth;’" (Mark 4:30,31)
There is no justification to say that Matthew was written exclusively to Jews. That is a dispensational fantasy.
No, a Christian would not be concerned about fleeing on a sabbath day, once it was revealed to him that those days meant nothing, as they had by 70AD.
It mean nothing to them, but it meant everything to folks who controlled the street and sold food, etc which they would need to set out on a hasty journey.
But I don’t expect you to get it with those dispensational blinders you are wearing.
A thousand years is to the Lord a day, and a day as a thousand years.
For the Lord, His return will be 'shortly' certainly shorter then the time between His promise of His first coming which was 4,000 years.
This doesn’t seem to square with what we read in the Bible accounts of demonic activity since the primary place where this happened was in and around Jerusalem, a fairly sophisticated religious community. If we use the gospel pattern as our guide we would expect the greatest place of activity where the gospel is strong. Satan could care less about animists. They are already under his control. He doesn’t need to manifest himself among those he already controls.
And we see nothing like what we see in the Bible. Most "demonic activity" is faked by the likes of Benny Hinn and his ilk.
Ah, the dispensational text of last resort. You suppose you can stop any argument by pulling this one out of context and throwing it at the situation.
What can I say against such artful and logical use of the Bible?
For the Lord, His return will be 'shortly' certainly shorter then the time between His promise of His first coming which was 4,000 years.
So we could have almost another 2000 years to go, right? The logical is impeccable. I’m sure the writers of the Talmud would be proud.
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