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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
“And if Luther and Calvin were correct in their “heresies” then who are you to decide if dispensationalism is some kind of damnable heresy?”
“Damnable heresy”? How did you interpret that from my statement “at the time, Darby was considered a heretic”?
And speaking of misinterpreting, to answer your question about dispensationalism, why do I believe it’s not biblical (my words) — I’m sure you’ve heard of the Bereans?
Well, my personal story is that, after a lot of prayer for clarity and by trying more to emulate the Bereans, my husband and I both left dispensationalism behind.
Acts 17:11: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
Your unbiblical literalism will get you every time.
A word was secretly brought to me,my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night,when deep sleep falls on men, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice: “Never eat hot dogs with sauerkraut and chili with beer before going to bed!! And, by the way, we left you a classic Broadway tune to help explain the problem.”
Altogether now, “You say tomato; I say tomatoe, you say potato; I say potatoe, tomato-tomatoe; poatato-potatoe, let’s call the whole thing off.”
Dispensation of innocence (Gen 1:1–3:7), prior to Adam’s fall,
The Adamic Covenant -——— Dispensation of conscience (Gen 3:8–8:22), Adam to Noah,
The Noahic Covenant -——— Dispensation of government (Gen 9:1–11:32), Noah to Abraham,
The Abrahamic Covenant -——— Dispensation of patriarchal rule (Gen 12:1–Exod 19:25), Abraham to Moses
The Sinaitic Covenant -——— Dispensation of the Mosaic Law (Exod 20:1–Acts 2:4), Moses to Christ,
The Davidic Covenant
The Messianic Covenant ——— Dispensation of grace (Acts 2:4–Rev 20:3), the current church age.
Wow!! There’s enough heresy here to go to war over.
That, my friend, is an absolutely telling, dividing-point, type question.
That question is a tipping point. Bullseye. Thanks.
You could have saved yourself some trouble and just pointed to the correct page in Scofield's Notes.
I assume this means you "literalists" are all disavowing the decidedly non-literal interpretation of your fellow dispensationalist Chuck Missler quoted here.
Or is it just another example of your "literal-when-convenient" method?
Well they were partially right, right??? Because the Jewish people have already returned to the land of Israel -- "before" [not "after"] turning to Jesus as their Messiah, right???
And why would they return to the land of Israel at all??? Ahhh -- it was and is the Land of the Abrahamic Promise.
“You could have saved yourself some trouble and just pointed to the correct page in Scofield’s Notes.”
Was that the funny looking guy with the beard who spoke to me in the dream? Actually, the stuff came from Wikipedia. I don’t own a Scofield; I use an old Dickson Study Bible that is falling apart.
If you left it behind, you wouldn't keep coming back to this thread. You left it. But you didn't leave it behind. It's still with you.
Oh, no! Their trotting out their "symoblic" peashooter again.
So, let's see, the bread and cup are symbols of the body & blood, and overall of the sacrifice on the altar.
Let's see if we can decipher the 666Nero of John relating to Paul's "man of sin sitting in the temple."
It means _________ that all Christians need to know.
a. Caesar likes pizza and Christians should fellowship over a good Italian buffet.
b. Caesar has long-distance agents who push around Jews about their temple worship, and therefore, Christians should get really mad at both Romans and Jews. The lesson: pride should really hack you off!
c. Caesar longed to sit in the Jerusalem Temple but didn't like boat travel cause it made him seasick, and he didn't like overland cause it was just too much camping outside, so if he coulda done it, he woulda done it, and that means that he would've personally bonked the Jews if he could've, but it did give rise to travel agents.
d. Caesar didn't sit in the Temple, so he isn't the man of sin about whom Paul wrote.
They’re — symbolic.....
Sigh....
Which ultimately came from Scofield’s Notes.
Unfortunately, it's still with all of us.
Most people choose what annoys them.
This is not what those churchmen had in view since the restorations of Israel found in the Bible are all following repentance and a renewal of the covenant in faith.
A secular/political decree in 1948 does not match the criteria that true biblical scholars are interested in.
And why would they return to the land of Israel at all??? Ahhh -- it was and is the Land of the Abrahamic Promise.
Abraham was promised the entire world (Roman 4:13). I’m not saying I accept the interpretation of these churchmen, I was merely pointing out that a restoration view was not limited to dispensationalism, or holding such a view makes one a dispensationalist. Be reminded that the Puritan view does not share the radical features of dispensationalism, e.g., restoration of Israel while yet in unbelief with no end in sight.
True, and yet we still hang around on the Religion section of FR.
“Which ultimately came from Scofield’s Notes.”
Which ultimately came about 150 years after the Covenant stuff. Kind of like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls that authenticated and explained some of the Old Testament or moving on from milk to strong meat.
That Word also teaches that the world will wax worse and worse and lawlessness will increase until the Great Tribulation . . . etc.
To believe both, you must conclude that either A) Transformed lives don't accomplish jack squat when working in groups, meaning groups can't be transformed B) God doesn't plan on transforming lives in the future, or b) The "transformed life" is but a temporary phenomena.
or C) God meant what He said in II Timothy 3 --
I'll take C)
What I’m presently researching, (without much luck) is what actually happened in Jerusalem during the period of time from immediately after the crucifixion to that period of time (the weeks) after the descent of the Holy Spirit. An author whose reference I’ve lost, (I believe it’s Neuhaus?), has written a new book wherein he professes a theory to the effect that a very large percentage of the Jewish population, perhaps as much as 50%, converted to Christianity and that the resultant, violent, reaction of the Temple hiearchy, (Priests, Pharisees, et al) led to a diaspora of sorts out of Jerusalem, (Christians forced to flee), and massive riots and violence which ultimately led to the Roman crackdown and the sacking of the Temple. What seems to be peculiarly buried is an accurate Roman historical account. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that the events following the Crucifixion were tumultuous, near cataclysmic, and yet, I’m also convinced that the “Authorities”, Roman and Hebrew worked very hard to downplay the events and to censure publication of information surrounding those events.
I ramble, off point as usual. sorry.
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