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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Not following that comment.
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.
Actually, it’s more like Joseph Smith’s golden tablets. There is no record of any of this nonsense for 1830 years of prior church history.
GOOD POINT.
But are you expecting
Contrarian folks hereon to
ACTUALLY BELIEVE an UNrubberized BIBLE??? EVEN as much as Scholfield may have?
I know we all have our needful hopeful fantasies but be careful!
/s
. . . nobody . . .
= = =
HOGWASH
Of course the "no end in sight" only applies to some dispensationalists. The date setters like Hal Lindsey and Chuck Smith had the details all worked out, based on the 1948 start date, Israel being the "fig tree", and the "literal" meaning of "this generation". Jesus would return in 1988. We all know that now.
Assuming your 1948 date is biblically significant (questionable), and with the great majority of Jews living in Israel presently being in unbelief regarding Jesus the Messiah, how long can they continue in this state? Does the Bible require that Jesus return within a certain period of time, or can this all go on for generation after generation (assuming Israel is not overrun by Arabs and destroyed)?
Has anyone noticed that this year, 2007, was the revised year for Jesus’ return, based on the new dispensational date of 1967, the Israeli-Arab War?
Does anyone know what the date setters in dispensationalism are using as the new and improved date for Jesus’ return based on 1948/1967 scenario? Or have they finally given up trying to take the fig tree image and “this generation” in Matthew 24 literally? Or are they quietly suggesting that maybe the significance of secular Israel being politically organized in 1948 was overblown by some of their comrades?
“Actually, it’s more like Joseph Smith’s golden tablets.”
Now, now, now. I wouldn’t go there if I were you!
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak of themselves as a “covenant people,” both collectively and individually. Entering into righteous and authorized covenants with God is one of the most important aspects of their lives. They see their covenants as modern counterparts of covenant making in biblical times. (See Covenants in Biblical Times)
Levity is not allowed in the Religion section of FR.
= = =
BY EDICT OF
The Most High, Lofty, Illuminated, 100% Always 100% Accurate, 100% Convinced, 100% Proud-of-it [whatever their position on the “it” on the table may be], All Honored Members of The Order of The Prissy Tidy Boxed Constricted Theology; as well as The High and Sacred Order of The Rubber Bibled, Rubber History Booked, Rubber Dictionaried Theologians and Pontificators; etc. etc. and etc.
otherwise known simply as
THE CONTRARIAN WINDBAGS,
OR
THE CALVINIST MAGICSTERICALS ON CAFFINE
OR
occasionally in some dark quarters as
CONTROL FREQUES ANONYMOUS
. . . there are other shorter labels . . . but . . . at some point, one must be kind.
tee hee.
OH, right. no humor harumph.
“Does anyone know what the date setters in dispensationalism are using as the new and improved date for Jesus’ return based on 1948/1967 scenario?”
Usually it is the day before April 15th or whatever date the returns are due owing to holidays or weekends.
Oh but you forgot a question:
"Where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep [in 70 AD], all things continue as they were from the beginning of the new testament"?
Thank you for another sign of the last days -- the scoffers of II Peter 3.
Ever hear of the Torah Jews? They don't believe in Zionism and are waiting patiently on the Lord.
I realize it is hard to comprehend sometimes without The Notes, but that what does that have to do with my question about Israel?
Of course we believe that Christ will return. We just do not believe the complex dispensationalism scenario of future events.
But I take it also you do not have an answer to my question about modern Israel and the timing of Jesus’ return, one that seemed so obvious just 40 years ago to most dispensationalists.
Plus they are leaving Israel in droves, some promised land
Read the prophets
They are apparently like the preterists who seem to have never heard of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, Zechariah, and the rest of the prophets of the God of Israel --
Well they read the word of God constantly, maybe that’s their problem. Secular Israel has Madonna
That’s about what I expected.
"The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, thought the world was sure to end in 1914. When it didn't happen, they merely moved the date up a few years.” (Chuck Smith, Dateline Earth: Countdown to Eternity, p. 26)
"We're the generation that saw the fig tree bud forth, as Israel became a nation again in 1948. As a rule, a generation in the Bible lasts 40 years. ... Forty years after 1948 would bring us to 1988." (Chuck Smith, Future Survival)
"I'm convinced that the Lord is coming for His Church before the end of 1981." (Chuck Smith, Future Survival)
I personally don't believe this either, nor do most of the bible believers that I know.
Maybe they got the memo that if they are not part of "gentile Christianity" and get raptured secretly away, then there's a 66.6% probability they won't survive another 7 years if they hang around.
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."
"These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."
Memo to the dispies, tt's all about Jesus, not Israel.
Sure would have fooled me??? I thought that all happened for you in 70 AD, when "the sign of the Son of man appeared in heaven" for you guys [Mt 24:29]. Preterists do believe that that took place in 70 AD don't they??
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