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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
I dunno. What qualifies any of us to schlep around on FR offering tidbits of wisdom from the Bible?
Is there a standard in the Bible? E.g., does one need to be ordained to host a radio call-in program? After all, it’s not a church.
Like anything else in life, caveat emptor.
You mean this portion, "The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined"?
Why isn’t the plain "literal" reading referring to the city and the sanctuary? That is the immediately preceding subject. Just as "end" in the next phrase means "end of wars"? In fact the phrase "And till the end of the war desolations are determined" is quite out of place if "it" is referring to the week and not the sanctuary.
It has to be the “prince” since Messiah was cut off (killed) before the sacrifice and worship ceased in the middle of the 70th week.
But the text does not say that without adopting the unnecessary dispensational reading.
Bottom line, one must assume the dispensational theology in order to read Daniel 9 in the way you suggest it ought to be read.
Are you saying that Jesus was just treating His hearers as misbehaving children? "Go away and don't bother me."
I’ve often asked the same questions about CI Scofield, and his Notes are far more influential than HH.
It was not "making it personal."
However, the implication of not caring about victims is very insulting, Quix. Insults discredit your side of the debate and you personally and further incite ill will on this forum. Calm down.
The warnings have been posted.
“Hank’s business practices and the manner in which he wrestled control of CRI are not shining examples of good Christian ethics.”
Because you disagree with him on eschatology doesn’t necessarily mean his business practices are subject.
As I said, CRI, which is his organization, has the highest rating from Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. So if his business practices were suspect, I highly doubt he would get that rating from them.
You can go to their website and look him up. It’s all there.
I repeat: unless and until he’s actually found guilty of something, I don’t believe it’s right to slander a fellow Christian. Time will tell if he’s actually found guilty of anything.
I don’t know Hanegraaff as a person, but his biblical knowledge is well respected by most scholars, though he does seem to have a lot of enemies from the Word-faith movement and dispensationalists.
“About the same way as “the kingdom of God is in you” and “the kingdom of God is at hand”. It depends on the context. One of a parents greatest tool in dealing with insistant kids is “in a minute” as is a husband’s, watching the football game.”
And here I thought you were a “literalist.” That’s the most convoluted logic I’ve heard yet on this thread.
Amazing!
As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t take Rosin’s words at face value if I were you.
World Space Commission
Dr. Carol Sue Rosin, Coordinator
http://www.worldservice.org/commissions.html#cr
http://www.worldservice.org/graphics/Carol_Rosin_1.jpg
(b. March 29, 1944 in Wilmington, Delaware) is an award-winning educator, author, leading aerospace executive and space and missile defense consultant. She is a former spokesperson for Wernher von Braun and has consulted to a number of companies, organizations, government departments and the intelligence community. She is the current President of the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) which she co-founded with Alfred Webre. Dr. Rosin has received the support of various prominent individuals such as U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich [1][2], and Hon. Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian Minister of National Defence. She is also a witness for The Disclosure Project. [3]
Email: rosin@west.net
Amen.
God still owes one more 'week, (7yrs)to the Jew, the Messiah having been cut off at the end of 69.
In the middle of that (Dan.12:11) 'week' the 'prince' (anti-Christ) breaks the peace treaty with them and sits in their Temple, defiling it (2Thess.2)
Those are the Jews.
That's correct, not all Israel is Israel-spiritually.
Since one's race could not save you, which what was a lot of Jews were counting on for their salvation.
But they needed the faith of Abraham, being his physical seed wasn't enough (Jn.8)
So, to be the real Israel (saved) one had to have faith in the Messiah, not just the correct blood lines.
There is nothing in Galatians 3 that say any such thing. The phrase neither Jew nor Greek is intended by Paul to teach that racial barriers no longer exist in the household of faith. As he said in Eph. 2 the middle wall of partition has been broken down, and there is but one household of faith, the spiritual commonwealth of Israel. He does say that a Christian is a child of Abraham and thus part of spiritual Israel (Gal. 6:16).
What Paul is teaching in those passages is that those differences that separated Jew and Gentile are now over and one new man was created-the Christian (Eph.2:15)
He states what was revealed to him was not revealed to the prophets of old, that the Gentiles were to be fellowheirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.
That it was the church that was a mystery from the beginning of the world and the church is the uniting of Jew and Gentile into one body, the body of Christ.
That had never happened before, when Jew and Gentile remained separate.
Today they become Christians.
The Israel of God are those gentiles who are wild olive trees who are grafted into the Olive tree (Israel)
Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith, be not highminded but fear (Rom.11:20)
We are Abraham's spiritual seed, not his physical ones.
We are receiving the spiritual blessings of the Kingdom of God, which the Jews lost as a people when they rejected their Messiah (Mat.21:43)
By the way since you were in Romans, did you notice in Romans 4:19, how Abraham's body was dead?
Now what part of his body do you think was dead?
Baloney. His eschatology has nothing to do with my opinion of him. Hank Hannegraff got his eschatology from Walter Martin.
I disagreed with Walter Martin's eschatology, but Walter Martin was a saint and a learned biblical scholar.
IMO, Hannegraff is a fraud... An empty suit masquerading as a know-it-all. He has no legitimate biblical credentials. He has not business pretending to the "the Bible Answer Man."
Just curious, but where does it say that in the Bible?
Gen.17, Rom.4:19
[ They have to prove their lineage from the 12 tribes. ]
Again, where does it say that in the Bible?
Ezra 3:59, Jer.31:31, Heb.8:8-9, Rom.11:1, Rom.9:2-5
[ I cannot believe we are even arguing this! ]
And I can’t believe you know so little about God’s covenant people.
I cannot believe you didn't know that Abraham was sexually dead (Rom.4:19).
Christians are not God's covenant people, the Jews are. (Rom.11:25-27)
We have a personal relationship with God, but He has not made any direct convenants with the Church.
OK, so you proved you know some math.
Thank you, but no more, that is my limit!
Even today men are able to father children well into their senior years, much longer than women are able to bear children. Outside the Bible, the oldest father on record was a fellow from Australia who was 93 when his wife presented him with a child. And Abraham lived to be 175, so by our standards he was still middle aged when Isaac was born. Second, Sarah says that she is no longer having pleasure with Abraham in Gen.18:12. since they are now both old. Do you make this stuff up yourself, or is someone feeding it to you? 9 Then they said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" So he said, "Here, in the tent." 10 And He said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son." (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" 13 And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?' 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son." (Gen. 18) It’s pretty clear from the context and all we know about Abraham and Sarah and their desire for a child that the "pleasure" in view was the pleasure f a child, not some sexual gratification. The Hebrew word "pleasure" there has no sexual connotation in the Bible. God regenerating both Sarah's and Abraham's sexual organs.
The sentence says what it says.
It is you that is reading into something that was not there.
The passage says shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also.
Why would Sarah make that comment if Abraham could still perform?
If he could perform, then it was still only an issue with her barren womb.
But the Bible doesn’t say that, only your imagination.
The Bible says exactly that (Rom.4:19)
Abraham was able to have children after Sarah's death when he remarried, Demonstrating that his "dead phallus" was probably not the issue.
No demonstrating that it was, that God had revived it.
Abraham had faith in God that Isaac, his heir would come from his own loins, even though he was no longer able to perform sexually, hence the cutting away of dead flesh from a dead phallus, which God brought back to life.
Amen.
Huh?
Sanctification has to do with the individual believer, not the world.
Nowhere do you see the world getting better morally or spiritually.
Christians are the 'salt' of the earth, but many Christians have lost their saltness and have become involved in false doctrines and neo-evangelicalism, imitating the world in their dress, music, language and thinking.
For Daniel the time was not ready to reveal what had been revealed.
There was as yet, no New Testament, which makes Daniel understandable.
Hence, since we have Revelation, we can now understand Daniel.
Two different books for two different periods of time.
That is what is known as progressive revelation.
Christ and Christianity changed nothing? Interesting view you have.
You think conditions in the world today are better then they were 100 years ago?
In what way?
Christianity is regressing, not progressing.
More heresies, false religions, Islam, cults, secular humanism, and neo-evangalism.
As for the serpent, that old red dragon, no my children didn't play with dragons, not even when they got old enough to.
Isa.11 didn't say anything about dragons, it talked about children playing with asps.
But in your world, you may see that all the time, but I've never seen it happen-maybe I am just too sheltered.
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