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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Obviously, I missed something, but it has been my understanding that most Full Preterists come from the Postmill camp. Most Partial Preterists come from the Amill camp. I think the distinction is important for several reasons:
#1. Amills are NOT Replacementarians as Dispensationalists love to fling around. We belive in the Gentile ingrafting INTO Israel. It is hard to find racists when they believe they are joined to Jews.
#2. The clear gulf between Partial’s and Full’s is the testimony that the Lord is going to return to judge the earth. And, it seems to be a gulf that very few people cross to deny.
At least, this has been my observation. But, what do I really know. I’m not even a Full Partial Pretereist; just an over-overexurbant Amill.
I never keep Amils, postmils et al any straighter than their convoluted twistings of Scripture.
Interestingly, FWIW, Walvoord has this to say re Mat 24 . . .
p381
“The second and third questions concerning signs of His coming and the end of the age actually were the same question because the age ends at the time of His coming. Matthew gives us the most complete answer to these two questions (Matt 24:4-30)”
“Scholars interpret Matthew from several different points of view. Usually their interpretation of prophecy in general dictates the interpretation of this section. Amillenarians, who deny a literal millenial reign of Christ, tend to take these prophecies in more of a general than specific way and frequently attempt to find fulfillment in the first century. Accordingly they attempt to relate most of the prophecies to the time when Jerusalem was destoyed in A.D. 70.”
“Post millenarians have a different problem in that they want to support their view that the world is going to get better and better as the Gospel gradually triumphs; but this passage of Scripture does not support this and, in fact, predicts increasing evil with the climax at the Second Coming. . . . “
“Only the premillenial interpretation tends to interpret this prophecy as literal and specific. Even among premillenarians, however, variations can be observed. Some hold that this entire passage will be fulfilled in the future in connection with the Great Tribulation. Others believe that the break comes at verse 9 with the previous predictions being general in character and the particular prophecies, beginning with verse 9, being fulfilled in the Great Tribulation. Still another point of view which is presented in this writing is that the entire period described in verses 4-14 are general prophecies that can find fulfillment throughout the present age, with verses 15-30 fulfilled in the Great Tribulation. However, these same prophecies and the events predicted in verses 4-14 are repeated in the Great Tribulation when what was perhaps partially fulfilled earlier then have a very literal and devastating fulfillment. The cewntral question is whether the specific signs given in verses 15-26 are the future Great Tribulation. Under this interpretation the sign of the abomination will be the beginning of the last three-and-a-half years when the world ruler takes over and the Great Tribulation begins.”P 383
EVERY PROPHECY IN THE BIBLE
JOHN F WALVOORD
I don’t know, I just read the bible
If I understand full preterism, no millennial view makes any sense, because each millennial view posits a bodily second coming of Christ at the end at some point in the future. Full preterists deny the second coming, at least as it has been historically formulated in the creeds.
#1. Amills are NOT Replacementarians as Dispensationalists love to fling around. We belive in the Gentile ingrafting INTO Israel. It is hard to find racists when they believe they are joined to Jews.
As do us postmils.
#2. The clear gulf between Partial’s and Full’s is the testimony that the Lord is going to return to judge the earth. And, it seems to be a gulf that very few people cross to deny.
True.
At least, this has been my observation. But, what do I really know. I’m not even a Full Partial Pretereist; just an over-overexurbant Amill.
Sounds like an oxymoron. :-)
***Sounds like an oxymoron. :-)***
Who knows. It just seems strange that we had to be warned about Full Preterism and racism.
Frankly, I just don't understand how every Christian isn't a postmil. If we believe the Holy Spirit works through the preaching of God's word to transform lives, then as the Bible is preached more and more it will continue to transform nations and the world, according to His precepts.
Under the postmil category you'll find names like Athanasius, Lorainne Boettner, John Calvin, Robert Lewis Dabney, Jonathan Edwards, Eusebius, Kenneth Gentry, A.A. Hodge, Charles Hodge, J. Marcellus Kik, J. Gresham Machen, Iain Murray, John Owen, W.G.T. Shedd, Augustus H. Strong, B.B. Warfield, Gary North and Greg Bahnsen.
Where these guys just foolish optimists?
"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." -- Isaiah 55:11
If we believe the Holy Spirit works through the preaching of God’s word to transform lives, then as the Bible is preached more and more it will continue to transform nations and the world, according to His precepts.
= = =
That tells God what HE HAS to have meant by that—to fit in your tidy little box.
But the Whole Counsel of Scripture indicates quite differently.
“Would you not agree that the “heresies” of Calvin and Luther actually led to a better understanding of the truth of scripture?”
In their case, yes.
Do you believe the word of God doesn’t transform lives by the hearing of it?
Of course I believe God transforms lives through the hearing of The Word.
That Word also teaches that the world will wax worse and worse and lawlessness will increase until the Great Tribulation . . . etc.
You’re such a good student of the Word. I thought you knew that.
You didn’t address me, and I don’t really know who the man of lawlessness was.
But what I do know is that since there’s no third temple mentioned in the Bible, he took his seat in the last one. Also, note the following verses:
Thessalonians 2:6-7: And now you know what IS holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness IS ALREADY at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.
I dare say that your run of the mill dispensational denier get most of their theology from the likes of V. Gene Robinson and Pope Benedict XVI.
And if Luther and Calvin were correct in their "heresies" then who are you to decide if dispensationalism is some kind of damnable heresy?
If you are not a full preterist, then you must be a partial dispensationalist.
That's not an answer. It's an assertion, and a wrong one to boot.
No, it's an answer based on what is described in Daniel, an abomination of desolation being set up in the holy Temple.
Morever, in Matthew 24:2 the Lord is asked about the signs leading to his coming and end of the world.
None of which happened in Luke 21.
Read the historical accounts of what happened in the Roman siege.
The Temple was burnt down, no one set up any abomination in it.
It is the worst thing to have happened to them so far, but worse is coming.
What is contrary to what the Lord says is the denial that He comes back to save them and they recognize him as their Messiah-this did not happen in 70Ad.
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.
That is not what happened in Luke.
In Matthew they are told to flee when they see the Abomination of desolation set up in the Holy Place as predicted by Daniel.
That Holy Place is the Temple.
The Christians fled after the Roman armies pulled back for a short time when Titus went back to Rome.
A dispensational presupposition not supported by anything actually in the Bible.
Yes, it is supported by the genealogies that I gave you.
That is why Matthew only goes back to Abraham while Luke goes back to Adam.
Understanding the Bible means understanding differences as well as similitaries (rightly dividing)
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