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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
So then, if Christians endure to the end, they will eventually be saved???
At the Rapture, all true Christians (born again by faith), are taken to heaven.
Now, during the 7 year tribulation period, there will be many Jews and Gentiles who will be saved and martyred as a result (Rev.7:14).
Those Gentiles who do survive to the end, will be judged on how they treated the Jews and if they treated them well, they will be able to enter into the Millennial kingdom (Matthew 25:31-46)
Christian is a very specific designation which only applies to those who are saved between the beginning of the Church at Pentecost (Acts 2) and its removal at the Rapture (1Thess.4, 1Cor.15.)
All of those who are saved after the Rapture are not considered dispensationally as 'Christians' since they do not have the same relationship with Christ, one of which is the permanent indwelling of Holy Spirit resulting with the believer being in personal union with Christ as His Bride and thus, part of His own body.
Since I’m not a scoffer wrt God’s timetable, I will not judge that. If you think you are smarter than Jesus, be my guest. Certainly the world is in better shape today than it was 2000 years ago from the standpoint of the numbers exposed to and accepting the gospel of salvation.
By the time Christ returns all will be accomplished has He has said.
How long you s'pose this Millenium is going to last???
That’s up to God. I believe He wishes to have a great multitude to worship Him through eternity (Rev. 7:9). It takes time to get those types of numbers.
Now I am one of the saints...But it don't seem I'm reigning over anybody...I'm still having trouble with the dog...Who are you reigning over???
Perhaps that’s what you get when you walk by sight and not by faith. I’m reigning because Christ says I’m reigning, not because I feel it or perceive it with my human faculties.
Don't the Amill's simply skip the millennial reign and move right into the eternal one-the New Heavens, New Earth, New Jerusalem?
I agree with you whole heartedly...
You stated however, that all get saved by grace thru faith but yet those Gentiles apparently have to perform works along with faith to get saved...
What's your view on that???
One thing is for certain...There are far more churches now but whether they are filled with saved Christians may be debatable...
The world is filled with apostacy...
Perhaps that’s what you get when you walk by sight and not by faith. I’m reigning because Christ says I’m reigning, not because I feel it or perceive it with my human faculties.
Sure, that's exactly like saying Jesus really IS in the wafer and wine...And it's like saying I have won the lottery but I can't see the money and it doesn't show up at my bank...
What you refuse to accept is that when Jesus shows up again, ALL eyes will SEE Him...He will move to sit on the Throne of David in Jerusalem...We will no longer need Faith...We will be able to look Jesus in the eye...We will be walking by sight...
And when He says we will reign with him, we will actually REIGN WITH HIM...
No, that only shows what they believed (James 1:22)
That is where those dispensationalists who believe that one is saved by faith plus works under the Law and in the Tribulation err, they forget that one always acts on what one truly believes.
A case in point is for the Christian today, 1Jn.1:8-10 reveals about what the believer believes about personal sin.
If one believes that one can and does sin, he will confess it, but if he believes that he is sinless, he will ignore 1Jn.1:9 and thus, deceive himself and continue in sin.
A Christian must do something to get cleansed, he must confess that sin, but he is not cleansed because of the act, he is cleansed by his faith in what Christ did on the Cross and his act reveals that faith.
EACH ONE OF WHICH WAS SUFFICIENT TO BLOW THE 70AD THING TOTALLY OUT OF THE WATER.
Doesn't scratch the surface of the Replacementarian perspective, mentality, blindness.
I've a fair amount of experience, in my near 61 years, of observing folks truly seeking truth. Some of the pontifications from the Replacementarian perspective do not bear the faintest whiff of a demonstrably authentic tone and spirit of truly seeking Biblical truth. That's increasingly alarming, to me.
Am reminded of the fellow in the flood on the top of the house . . . with the row boat of rescuers, helicopter etc.
When God sends truth--especially plain Biblical truth repeatedly and it is trashed . . . one wonders what God's response is likely to be.
I still have a lot of confidence that all who truly in their hearts put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior; have confessed such . . . will be saved.
But one begins to wonder . . . when the truth is so fiercely resisted . . . what is the nature of the relationship with He WHO IS TRUTH? If even believers resist HIS SPIRIT LEADING INTO ALL TRUTH . . . what consequences will flow from that sowing. There will undoubtedly be some consequences. I can't imagine them being wonderful.
At a minimum . . . they are likely to find themselves more than an hour late and a dollar short in the birth pangs leading up to The Great Tribulation . . . as such birth pangs get more and more severe and serious.
Troubling.
INDEED
But then what would they be left with, 'rightly dividing', which they hate more then they love the truth,
Sure, that's exactly like saying Jesus really IS in the wafer and wine...And it's like saying I have won the lottery but I can't see the money and it doesn't show up at my bank...
What you refuse to accept is that when Jesus shows up again, ALL eyes will SEE Him...He will move to sit on the Throne of David in Jerusalem...We will no longer need Faith...We will be able to look Jesus in the eye...We will be walking by sight...
And when He says we will reign with him, we will actually REIGN WITH HIM...
LOL -- Exactly -- These Preterists do sound a lot like wafer and whine Vaticanists, don't they.
You could well be right on that score. I don’t know.
And far more rejecting it and going to hell.
Moreover, much of what passes for the Gospel today, isn't, so many who claim to be saved aren't.
We certanly see an increase in religions, such as a return to Romanism by the Protestants and Islam.
I don't see how you get this from that passage. The closest I see any reference that can be interpreted as the Jews is "brethren". However, I think in this case it is more aptly understood as Christians.
Because it is coming after Christ's return.
This is dealing with those who survived the Tribulation, which the Church doesn't go through.
'The scorner seeketh truth, but findeth it not'
I was just reading Roms. 11:24 and we are grafted into the tree, but the Jews who in the end are saved are grafted into it as well. I don't think we remain distinct after we are saved.
And there are scores more where those came from...
LOL...
But they were rebuked for that and told to preach the gospel. IOW, they were wrong. I don't believe they were saved until they believed the gospel.
Thus, the content of the Gospel has changed, but not the method (faith by grace).
We will probably always disagree about this, unless I can get you to change your mind. ;-)
During the Tribulation people are being saved by Grace through Faith. I believe these people are correctly called Born Again Christians not Jews. They may be Jews by ethnicity, but not by Faith. Also, Gentiles are being converted during this period as well.
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