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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Christ used the word in the sense that Daniel used it in, that is why He makes a reference to him.
15When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
Not an abomination of desolation that was set up in the Temple-yet.
11And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
The desolation right in the midst of the 7 year tribulation period.
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.
Luke is not explaining Matthew.
They are speaking of two different events that occur at two different times.
Luke says that this is the day of vegeance (vs.22), while in Matthew, it is the time of tribulation.
Nothing is said in Luke about it being the worst tribulation in history, but it is vegeance for the Jews crucifying their Messiah.
Vs.25 of Luke shifts to the Tribulation of Matthew.
And these passage have to do with Premillenialism vs Amillenialism.
I can agree with that, it's just that I do not agree Chipper understands what that "sense" is.
Saying that I agree with the sense is not the same as saying the two things are intended to identity the identical event or thing.
The sense in which Christ used the words is as I described it with the "Potemkin village" analogy.
The first century Jewish Christians certainly understood "the sense" since they did indeed flee to the mountains when the saw the abomination unfolding before their eyes.
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.Do the dispensationalists have an answer?
Another poster quoted Luther and Spurgeon.
Running to Strongs is just an attempt to avoid what the passage says in English.
Now, anytime that phrase 'holy place' is used in the New Testament, it refers to an actual Temple.
Acts 6
13And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
Acts 21
28Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.
Hebrews 9
12Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
25Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;
All over, since Christ is the Author of all Scripture. And you know it since you failed to answer in substance here.
Here’s one example: "And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations" (Ezek. 5:9). This describes the judgment at the hands of ancient Babylon. Was that Jesus speaking, or no? Hyperbolic? Absolutely.
They are speaking of two different events that occur at two different times.
That's your theory, which you cannot substantiate. On the other hand, any plain reading of the texts sees the parallel and would be in harmony with a fulfillment to "this generation" in the events of AD70.
That's your theory, which you cannot substantiate. On the other hand, any plain reading of the texts sees the parallel and would be in harmony with a fulfillment to "this generation" in the events of AD70.
No, that can be seen by just comparing the two in clear English.
Only by Jesuit-like mental gymnastics could anyone think otherwise.
You are letting your theology determine your scriptural interpetation.
I like those words and I wonder how does the Holocaust fit into it
All over, since Christ is the Author of all Scripture. And you know it since you failed to answer in substance here. Here’s one example: "And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations" (Ezek. 5:9). This describes the judgment at the hands of ancient Babylon. Was that Jesus speaking, or no? Hyperbolic? Absolutely.
I was asking you for a passage where Christ, in the Gospels used hyperbolic language, not a passage from one of the prophets.
Clearly, you have none to offer from the Gospels, so your attempts to have Christ speaking in that manner in Matthew 24 are not consistent with His normal manner of speaking.
To be more specific, he is letting his preterism determine his scriptural interpretation.
No, they did not.
Christians fled when the armies withdrew for a time since Titus had to go back to Rome.
Jews themselves, entered into the city and were not allowed to leave by the Zealots.
And the Holy Place refers to the Temple, where the sacrifices get stopped for a 3.5 year period as the Anti-Christ sits in it (2Thess.2).
The Holocaust is just a picture of what happens to the Jews in the tribulation, where 2/3 are wiped out (Zech 13:9)
yes, we have an answer for it-it is wrong.
Christians did not flee at the arrival of the armies, but when they withdrew for a time
Moreover, Matthew isn't speaking to Jewish Christians, it is speaking to Jews, since the book of Matthew is a book directed to the Jew (note the genealogy back to Abraham), while Luke is a book for Gentiles, going back to Adam.
Thank you.
I know you have to get a thick skin when you start debating these issues!
I hope I didn't say anything to personally offend you either.
A dispensational presupposition not supported by anything actually in the Bible.
AMEN!
Good point. And on that note, here’s an interesting quote from Thomas Newton (1700s) re “abomination of desolation”:
“Whatever difficulty there is in these words, it may be cleared up by the parallel place in St. Luke, ‘And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains...’”
“The Roman army is called ‘the abomination,’ for its ensigns and images, which were so to the Jews. As Chrysostom affirms; ‘every idol, and every image of a man, was called an abomination’ among the Jews.’
“For this reason, as Josephus informs us, the principal Jews earnestly entreated Vitellius, governor of Syria, when he was conducting his army through Judea against Aretas, king of the Arabians, to lead it another way; and he greatly obliged them by complying with their request.”
“We farther learn from Josephus, that after the city was taken, the Romans ‘brought their ensigns into the temple, and placed them over against the eastern gate, and sacrificed to them there.’”
“The Roman army is therefore fitly called ‘the abomination’ and ‘the abomination of desolation,’ as it was to desolate and lay waste Jerusalem : and this army’s besieging Jerusalem is called ‘standing where it ought not,’ as it is in St. Mark, xiii. 14; or ‘standing in the holy place,’ as it is in St. Matthew; the city, and such a compass of ground about it, being accounted holy.”
“Christians did not flee at the arrival of the armies, but when they withdrew for a time.”
For a short time, just long enough to get out, which was why Jesus told them to flee to the mountains, not into the city. And why He also told them:
Matt. 24:17-18 “Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.”
BTW, notice that that’s in MATTHEW.
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