Bingo. And what I wanted to draw your attention to is in the lower right corner.
"it is emphatically not what I believe. . .But the culmination of that is still IN CHRIST."
Good.
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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Mixing
especially in convoluted illogical ways
apples, oranges, cacti and whale boogers
will never result in solid theology.
Just my reality.
Uhh..
Oh, nevermind.
good.
Isn't that the nature of the Christian Research Institute that he currently runs. Walter Martin was also very critical of others, using the Bible as the test of orthodoxy.
Tell me please, after all the scripture that points this out to them, they won't believe it?
It's hard to see in a very dark place?
It’s the dispensational pov that says God has another plan for the Jews besides saving faith in Jesus Christ --topcatI don’t know, personally, of any Dispy—certainly who’s theology I’d respect on such points—but really I don’t know anyone who believes that. --Quixie
Right here, Bubba. Plan 'o salvation for the Milennium, per this guy, is "works no faith".
I've brought this up before on FR, and no dispie has repudiated it.
Not to be all gloom and doom, but we have moved into a post modernist age. In the modernist period there was a belief in absolute truth. The focus may have been on scientific means of finding the truth, but at least you could argue with someone who would agree that there are absolutes.
In the post modernist age we don't have any absolutes other than feelings. You must not criticize others behavior or beliefs because it might hurt their feelings. I think this clearly a downward trend. The correction might be the muslim threat, once people realize what the enemy is.
Please reread the entire chapter 15 quoted in my post. There are 7,000 years (7 days) appointed to Adamic man. The last 1,000 years (7th day) is the Sabbath.
After the 7th day or 7000 years is the 8th day – the new heaven and new earth - a time of not counting.
The belief appears again in chapter 33 of 2 Enoch (not to be confused with 1 Enoch) - which has been dated between the 1st century B.C. to the 10th century A.D. but most often, late 1st century A.D.
I do not.
Several tries couldn’t get link to open.
in any case . . .
it is emphatically not what I believe.
I believe God has Jacob’s children on a ‘make-em-jealous’ track as He says in His Word.
But the culmination of that is still IN CHRIST.
AS SCRIPTURE ALSO OUTLINES QUITE CLEARLY ENOUGH.
. . . FOR THOSE with eyes to see.
Thanks very much, I do! :)
Bingo. And what I wanted to draw your attention to is in the lower right corner.
"it is emphatically not what I believe. . .But the culmination of that is still IN CHRIST."
Good.
Let’s review a bit more of the text:
Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, “He finished in six days.” This implieth that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifieth, saying, “Behold, to-day Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. “And He rested on the seventh day.” This meaneth: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man,There is nothing in here which speaks of the "thousand years" of Rev. 20 as being the "Sabbath rest", the seventh thousands of years . In fact he explicitly denies this by the phrase "the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years". He is speaking of the second coming as the end of all things, and then begin the Sabbath rest, which is the new heavens and new earth.
The Lord is not resting during the futurist millennium. He fact, as I said, He is quite busy putting down authorities and offering animal sacrifices per Ezekiel 40-48.
If you wish to dismiss all of this as evidence of what many early Christians believed, that is your choice.
I’m afraid you have not offered any evidence, just your "musings" on what these folks may have been saying. The rest of the early church fathers do not seem to support your limited interpretations.
Amen. What do your "musings" tell you about this passage in the light of Hebrews 4?
If you are referring to the same book, 2 Enoch is not of Christian origin. It is certainly not written from the perspective as Jesus as the Messiah and fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets. It's usefulness to Christian scholarship is highly questionable.
His second coming will be physical as we have been saying, and no one knows the day or hour. You just have not been listening, preferring instead to paint us as teaching something we clearly do not teach.
I find this rather interesting statement given other things you have written, e.g.,
I’m a third party in this debate because I personally eschew all of the doctrines and traditions of men across the board, leaning instead on the revelations of God the Father in (1) Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, (2) the indwelling Holy Spirit, (3) Scriptures and (4) Creation both spiritual and physical. In other words, I am a Christian plain and simple.
What does "across the board" mean if you are using writings like Barnabas and 2 Enoch to support your "musings"? These are not Scripture. They are, in fact, "the doctrines and traditions of men" which you eschew.
Can you tell us how you really decide what is true?
What specific thing in the lower right?
Religious leaders 2,000
years
ago wanted things in tidy little boxes;
black white EITHER/OR
all/nothing
categories etc.
too.
Christ sliced all across such compulsions.
Would have none of it.
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