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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Adam clearly means
Adam = "the red earth" Adam, the first man, the parent of the whole human family
And Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
Malachi 2:10
Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?
I know a whole group of Lutheran missionaries who were mercifully liberated and went the other direction.
And God multiplied their effectiveness accordingly.
Yet again, a Replacementarian’s ASSUMPTIONS
bite the dust as
WRONG.
PRAISE GOD FOR JimRob’s wisdom on this matter.
All of you know what to look for. If they make another run at the forum it'll probably be on one of these types of threads, so please keep the red flags in mind and if something doesn't smell right let me know by Freepmail.
Absolutely. From time to time we run into that “serpent seed” theology and we roundly condemn it and seek to teach otherwise. thanks
There’s not a high degree of motivation
when Replacementarians
mangle all out of whack the most basic, clear, straightforward prophetic Scriptures in the book.
or ignor them
or deny them.
or rationalize them in a slippery fashion.
Well you could always prove to us you read the bible, but I really don’t care either, as I already know the answer
If they make another run at the forum it'll probably be on one of these types of threads, so please keep the red flags in mind and if something doesn't smell right let me know by Freepmail.
Ping! will do.
Do I hear you correctly, that Full Preterism is a doorway to the Dark Side ?
Then feel free to post the verse. I haven’t tracked it down yet.
I have lots of verses virtually memorized but without refs.
I’m sure no one else does that. /s
It is clothing in which wolves sometimes hide.
I want to see you back up a statement you made, that’s all, the rest of us do it consistently
Note in the below article these themes:
The CHURCH began in Eden.
The SACRAMENTS were present in Eden.
The GRACE, for which the covenant thereof between the Father and the Son before time, was seen by man for the first time.
The GOSPEL of that grace was first preached to man.
You need to read again the account of Genesis and drop your preconceived notions of artifical dispensations and dispensations that, while they might exist, having nothing to do with the theology of Dispensationalism and don’t help your case anyway.
The Synagogue of Christ by Steve Schlissel
Messianic Jewish pastor
Messiah’s Congregation, Brooklyn, New York.
The church wasn’t born at Pentecost. It was Bar Mitzvah’d. No small matter, this. The church had a long, albeit dotted, history by the time the Spirit in Christ’s fullness fell, and a glorious, albeit difficult, future. By Pentecost, the church, because of its history, its providentially-ordained organization and the Holy Spirit’s promised guidance, was well-prepared to fulfill its function in the world.
The Belgic Confession, in Article XXVII, states, “We believe and profess one catholic or universal Church...This Church has been from the beginning of the world, and will be to the end thereof...” It has not, however, always had the same form. In the Garden of Eden God identified and separated the church (then consisting of two) using the essential elements, Word and Sacrament, Promise and Token, which would be present throughout the church’s history, in some form or another. Our first parents were created to understand themselves and all things else in terms of a word. They had received the defining Word of God; they had heard the anti-word of the serpent. Choosing the devil’s definitions, they had broken covenant with their Creator and entered into league with the destroyer, becoming co-pretenders with him to the throne.
God was not about to forsake His purposes, or to quickly formulate a “Plan B.” He graciously and forcefully took back Adam and Eve-He redeemed them-by placing hostility between them and their new master (the Antithesis), by promising in their hearing the incarnation of the conquering, suffering Messiah (the Protevangelium, first proclamation of the Gospel), and by clothing them with God-provided coverings (the “Sacrament”), indicating in the clearest terms that their fig leaves (their instinctive effort at self-atonement/covering) were wholly inadequate and unacceptable. It is God who saves. Calvinism did not originate in Geneva; it is found in Eden. God’s people, the covenant line, would henceforth be the people redeemed by Him to live, once again, in terms of His Word.
Matthew 24:21 (The Message)
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
21-22”This is going to be trouble on a scale beyond what the world has ever seen, or will see again. If these days of trouble were left to run their course, nobody would make it. But on account of God’s chosen people, the trouble will be cut short.
###########
Matthew 24:21 (Amplified Bible)
Amplified Bible (AMP)
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation
21For then there will be great tribulation (affliction, distress, and oppression) such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now—no, and never will be [again].(A)
Cross references:
Matthew 24:21 : Dan 12:1; Joel 2:2
#################
Matthew 24:21 (New Living Translation)
New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.
21 For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again.
###############
Matthew 24:21 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain
21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
##################
Matthew 24:21 (American Standard Version)
American Standard Version (ASV)
Copyright © 1901 Public Domain
21 for then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be.
###################
Matthew 24:21 (Darby Translation)
Darby Translation (DARBY)
Public Domain
21for then shall there be great tribulation, such as has not been from [the] beginning of [the] world until now, nor ever shall be;
###################
Matthew 24:21 (Today’s New International Version)
Today’s New International Version (TNIV)
© Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
###################
Matthew 24:21 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
21For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
################
AS with so many basic END TIMES prophetic Scriptures, this single verse blows the Replacementarian AD70 perspective totally out of the water.
Do I hear you correctly, that Full Preterism is a doorway to the Dark Side ?
A red flag. An indicator, part of a complex of beliefs. I don't know enough about Christian Identity to guess why hyper peterism would be part of their belief system.
To: 1000 silverlings; Uncle Chip You mean like the prophecy that Christ predicted regarding the fall of Jerusalem in Matthew? 21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21) Now, where else in scripture does Christ ever use 'hyperbolic' language as you claim this to be? 300 posted on 11/07/2007 1:09:24 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (We must beat the Democrats or the country will be ruined! - Lincoln) [ Post Reply | Private
If this were Geometry, you would have proved the given
No, that’s the original scripture FTD posted. We’ve acknowledged that and the question I asked came after. Try again
= = =
AS I noted above . . .
But, please, show me the post where you acknowledged anything of the truth of Scripture in this department!
PLEASE!
So,
y’all have admitted somewhere that Mat 24:21
blows your AD70 fantasies out of the water?
I sure missed it.
BTW,
I’ve forgotten in all the convoluted egg salad mangled postulations . . .
Do y’all beliee there will even BE A GREAT TRIBULATION?
Why do I have it in my head that you think that also happened in AD70?
If not then, when? Even a sequence would be interesting.
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