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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Thanks for your kind words and all your excellent posts.
Much agree with you.
When this happens the Jewish people convert en masse (Zech.12:10) which didn't happen in 70AD.
10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
Agreed.
Sure seems to be something destructive spiritually that goes on when folks read their rubber Bibles. The truth seems to fly out the window and utterly escape them.
Amazing.
Those bibles are not for truth finding, they are for the purpose of giving their unbiblical system a biblical facade.
Those bibles are not for truth finding, they are for the purpose of giving their unbiblical system a biblical facade.
= = =
Well put . . . a pseudo-Biblical facade.
Don’t seem fair...There’s two of you ganging up on that herd of A-/Post-/Millenialists...
Maybe one of you should sit back and give them a fighting chance...:)
It always cracks me up when preterists ridicule dispensationalists for looking at the signs of the times and the potential fulfillment of prophecy in current events, while preterists look at Josephus and make every stretch of the imagination possible to use Josephus as the primary source for the eisesgesis of their preterist philosophy.
The Preterists have added Josephus' history as their 67th book of the bible. And they have the gall to ridicule those who see the reestablishment of Israel after 2000 years, the current evidence of wars and rumors of wars and the collapse of the moral foundations of our civilization as evidence of the imminent return of Christ to gather his elect.
Clearly 70 AD was not a time of tribulation such as the world had never seen before or would ever see again.
That fact is that the Preterist position on scripture makes Josephus a saint and Jesus a false prophet.
***You brought up some nonsense about the Aorist, which is irrelevant on how the verse is translated,....***
Thank you for reminding me, again, why I don’t talk to you. You have plainly demonstrated that you know absolutely nothing.
***Christians have to believe that Christ died for them on the Cross and rose from the dead.
No Apostle believed any such thing for their own salvation.
And you know it.***
Probably my last response to you for a while....
I was unaware of ANY Dispensationalists that asserted that the Apostles didn’t have to believe in the death, burial, & resurrection of the Lord for their salvation. Perhaps topcat is right with his tagline.
And, yes, I deny your assertion on its face as about anti-Biblical as any I have every heard from someone supposed to be Christian.
If this is the Millennial Kingdom, then we all need to cross the Tiber.
What earthly kingdom are you referring to? That’s a dispensationalist concept.
Preterists truly do look for the fulfillment of all in history. While so-called partial preterists don’t buy the conclusion that even Christ returned in 70 AD, they do accept (believe it or not) that “HE came in the clouds.”
They point to Josephus, I believe, about hearsay stories of strange happenings in the heavens around Jerusalem at this time.
It’s mildly amusing to me that the partial preterists will get after pre-tribbers who posit a “coming in the clouds” and the “actual touchdown coming.” They then turn around and use EXACTLY the same logic and supporting verses to get around the logic of the full preterists.
The full preterists are left with the anti-Jesus position that Jesus returned to some “secret room” or to some “desert” place.
The thought patterns of the full preterists, though, infect the partials.
Preterists truly do look for the fulfillment of all in history. While so-called partial preterists don’t buy the conclusion that even Christ returned in 70 AD, they do accept (believe it or not) that “HE came in the clouds.”
They point to Josephus, I believe, about hearsay stories of strange happenings in the heavens around Jerusalem at this time.
It’s mildly amusing to me that the partial preterists will get after pre-tribbers who posit a “coming in the clouds” and the “actual touchdown coming.” They then turn around and use EXACTLY the same logic and supporting verses to get around the logic of the full preterists.
The full preterists are left with the anti-Jesus position that Jesus returned to some “secret room” or to some “desert” place.
The thought patterns of the full preterists, though, infect the partials.
***What earthly kingdom are you referring to? That’s a dispensationalist concept.***
Well, I don’t know any Preterists that presume any kingdom was setup in 70AD. The Full Preterists believe that the eternal state began and the last of Biblical prophecy was fulfilled in 70AD.
I mark the beginning of the millennium, the kingdom of God and the reign of Christ, from much earlier.
... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This [is] the first resurrection. Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Note, Marlowe that the FIRST Millennium is bracketed by 2 resurrections: “and they lived” and “but the rest... lived not.” The question here is: when did/ will the resurrection happen. And, for that answer, we turn to the gospel of the Lord....
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Note that the Lord himself speaks about 2 resurrections: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” and “the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.”
The hour now IS when the dead shall hear and live.
and they lived and reigned with Christ.
the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth....
The first resurrection began before 70AD, Marlowe....
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power....
What an accomplished personal attack!
Personal slash and burn is also a Replacementarian doctrine of the faith?
There ya go again.
Asking the Replacementarians, contrarian Preterists, Amil’s, Postmils
to be CONSISTENT
in their logic, Biblical interpretations and inferences, their historical understanding and their dictionaries.
I believe in miracles in the present era.
But expecting that out of Rubber logic books, rubber Bibles, rubber history books and rubber dictionaries is more miricle than I may be able to wrap my faith around.
It would be enough of a sizeable miracle to find a Replacementarian who’d just shift habits and begin to take a regular Bible at face value.
Not sure exactly what you are referring to her. Can you be more specific?
As far as I know, most partial preterists relate the coming in clouds to Daniel 7:13,14, which was an event not visible to the human eye.
Quix post 1534: Have begun to have a new level of concern for the Replacementarians . . . growing out of my professional experience . . .
And, yes, when someone asserts that the Greek tenses are irrelevant in translation, then they demonstrate zero knowledge. It is 100% ignorance. And I don’t think I should waste my time in the face of such ignorance. It is not a personal attack; it is noting a fact.
What did Jesus do in 70 AD?
I'm thinking a quick trip to London -- fish, chips, and a guinness draft.
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