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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
***Any one who did not get saved before the Rapture is complete, will not be a part of the Bride of Christ...***
Thank you. I am now well aware that the Dispensational view is that ALL the prophets before the coming of the Lord will never have their Messiah as bridegroom.
The funny thing here is that for all the racial nonsense about how special the Jews are, this view makes the OT saints little more than God’s little prostitute. And, to be honest, I find it particularly sad that anyone would call themself a Christian and friend of the Hebrews and believe such things. Talk about Replacementarianism and arrogance.
Abraham, David, et. all.: What do you mean we can’t be be part of Messiah’s bride?
God: Well, I’ll still visit every once in a while. [wink, wink] And, don’t forget the dirt.
Personally, I don’t think myself worthy to even be in the company of many of these people, much less the one who gets to be the bride while they get to be the other woman.
You don't know if I believe that or not...And why??? Because I never made such a statement...
Incidentally, I hope you didn’t take any of my posts as a personal insult because they weren’t meant to be.
Thank you for your thoughtful, studied, and carefully documented analysis.
Yes, I learned the cut-off is John the Baptist. And you are right that there is a "replacement" theeology, but it doesn't come from us. We have a continuation theology confirmed in the OT and the NT, one olive tree, two branches.
xzins had the original post thanks
Their house was left to them desolate, looks like something did it.
***Yes, I learned the cut-off is John the Baptist. And you are right that there is a “replacement” theeology, but it doesn’t come from us. We have a continuation theology confirmed in the OT and the NT, one olive tree, two branches.***
That is because we don’t carve up history into 7 dispensations. The sacramental tokens of grace began IN Eden. The age of grace began IN Eden. The covenant of grace (between the Father and the Son), instituted BEFORE time began, began to manifest itself IN Eden. The prophecy of redemption in grace for all mankind was first spoken to man IN Eden. The church began IN Eden.
I don’t know about Spurgeon, too verbose for me, and Luther I have never quoted, I don’t think, but Strong’s is a dictionary. I guess there are no dispensationalist dictionarys. That’s good, but I didn’t get the gift of the actual translation of Greek and Hebrew from the HS, but perhaps Dispos do and that’s a good thing
Well I don't see why not? We should and like Hal Lindsey when looking for the bogey man puzzle over the EU and Russia, completely ignoring Grand old Britain on whom the sun never set, and the US, because after all, they're us
I’ve often wondered why the prophetic fever didn’t ratchet up a few hundred notches with predictions that the anti-Christ was Bill Clinton (or, perhaps, Hillary). After all, your typical fundie dispy loved to tell everyone how the world was going to hell in a handbasket during his administration.
Maybe we should tell them to read Josephus (it’s not a dictionary) and see what a real anti-Christ looks like and he even built a temple!
Such silly statements do not help with your argument against the obvious parallel between Matt 24:15 and Luke 21:20. It only proves the fundamental irrationality of the entire dispensational system.
Using your rationale here, the "abomination of desolation" is "armies surrounding Jerusalem". Is that what the abomination of desolation means to you?
Just because something is parallel doesn't mean that it is identical or coincidental as these two passages prove. They may be similar but not the same.
Who profaned the altar? Who brought the curse upon them that they became desolate? What did they do, these ones who profaned the altar and brought the curse and yes it’s past tense
Jesus said it. Luke interpreted it. Take it up with them.
Just because something is parallel doesn't mean that it is identical or coincidental as these two passages prove. They may be similar but not the same.
Come on, Chipper, in order to discount the obvious parallelism and intent of Luke to be interpreting Jesus’ words for first century gentile readers, you need to have a better argument that "nu-uh".
You seem to have a very wooden understanding of the phrase "abomination of desolation" as used by Jesus. Jesus was using the phrase in much the same way was we would use a phrase like "Potemkin village". It conjures up a concept in the mind of the hearers based on historical facts. It can be applied to a modern situation for effect. E.g., "The CFO of the bank constructed a Potemkin village in order to hide his embezzlement." No one would read that sentence and think the CFO had anything to do with Catherine the Great.
So Jesus uses the phrase "abomination of desolation" (which comes from Daniel) to give His hearers a sense of the sort of destruction that was about to fall upon Jerusalem and the temple. Remember, He wants to impress the Jewish Christians that they need to flee at the first sign of the "abomination of desolation". If they waited until ensigns were actually set up in the temple or pigs sacrificed (as dispensationalists suppose) it would have been too late for the believers to flee.
Making any sense yet?
Similar but not identical and not parallel.
So what is the abomination of desolation: the armies surrounding Jerusalem or something abominable standing in the holy place??? It's one or the other -- choose, but choose wisely.
I don’t have to choose anything, the prophets pretty well spell it out, and I didn’t even have to use a dictionary..
What prophets? Webster or Oxford??? LOL
See if you ever read the bible, (which I really am convinced you don't)you would know the role of the prophets, and that they can predict either doom and gloom or hope for Israel- both national Israel and spiritual Israel. Scripture always has every answer that you are looking for, the answers to the questions are contained in the text.
I would tell you but you scoff way too much, will probably deny the scripture says what it does, although it says the same thing dozens of times, and then argue over the word "and" in the conjunctive or indicative state.
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