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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Where is that exactly in Josephus's writings???
And you do know that for decades the Roman Army maintained a fortress on the Temple Mount and its presence there was not an abomination to the Jews.
What is this -- 20 Questions??? And what does that have to do with the question before you???
I have answered your questions straight forward on this matter. If you can't answer the question that you were so sure about in the beginning, then just forget it. I have boots to polish.
Gosh -- if everything about this Millenium is symbolic then why make an exception for the reign??? Oh -- that's right, you are a preterist, it comes with the territory.
BTW Does Satan have internet and cell phone service in that minimum security Lake of Fire???
***If I may respond, I believe the binding of Satan in Rev. 20 corresponds to the binding of the strong man in Matthew 12:28,29, and represents the present kingdom age when the gospel by the power of the Spirit has freedom out among the nations. Jesus is presently plundering Satan’s domain, and many souls are leaving the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of light.***
Exactly. The binding of Satan is NO different from the way that Satan has always been bound in the sense that he has no more ability to work against the limits imposed by God than he had in the past. This is why, for instance, he had to have permission to do anything to Job. One of the wonders of God is that even Satan, while working for his own ends, has never been nothing more than a messenger of God, ultimately working his will. It must gall him to no end that his efforts serve to ultimately serve the will of the Lord.
However, the binding of Satan is different for the fact that he is now no longer permitted to deceive the nations while the Lord plunders his house of precious stones.
Well, I’m trying to get you to reason this out for yourself. If you have no interest, then I have no desire to impose the truth on you. You won’t believe it anyway.
***BTW Does Satan have internet and cell phone service in that minimum security Lake of Fire???***
So, is it your contention that, during the Millennial reign of Christ, Satan is in the lake of Fire? Scripture, please.
The one of the silliest comments from you yet.
The images in the Bible that describe things are the symbols. The reality is what the symbols represent.
Log that one away for future reference, no charge.
Exactly . . .
But given that Replacementarians seem to believe in drunken pink polka dot bunnies with green stripes running throughout their rubber Bibles . . .
PLEASE excuse those of us with normal Bibles for not bowing and scraping at the altar of mangled Scriptures; convoluted constructions on pseudo reality; fantasies ad nauseum; . . . and other slug slime detris from the Replacementarian edifi of cards.
The Replacementarians are dreaming of sending a space probe to the galactic cluster of
REASON?
Won’t wonders never cease.
My mistake -- "the bottomless pit". The question still remains, along with another: Just when was he bound and cast into this bottomless pit and when is his thousand year sentence up???
And that comment coming from the founder of the Preterist Caiaphus Fan Club -- short-lived of course. LOL
No it's all very real. Yet Jesus cursed the fig tree and it burned up and withered, even to the roots.
“Where is that exactly in Josephus’s writings???”
(Jewish Wars, book vi, chap.6): “And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and all the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns into the temple, and set them over against its eastern gate; and there they did offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus “Imperator” with the greatest acclamations of joy.”
“And you do know that for decades the Roman Army maintained a fortress on the Temple Mount and its presence there was not an abomination to the Jews.”
I can see you haven’t read Wars of the Jews by Josephus or you wouldn’t say that either:
According to Josephus, “the main catalyst for the Jews’ rebellion was the scandalous and unscrupulous Roman procurators in Judea continually provoked the Jews. They encouraged the plundering of the temple and the looting of the priests’ ornamental garments, along with other sacred treasures. This was the breaking point and sparked the inevitable revolt” (Wars of the Jews, Josephus, book II, chapters XIV-XVI).
“If I may respond, I believe the binding of Satan in Rev. 20 corresponds to the binding of the strong man in Matthew 12:28,29, and represents the present kingdom age when the gospel by the power of the Spirit has freedom out among the nations. Jesus is presently plundering Satan’s domain, and many souls are leaving the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of light.”
Well put.
***My mistake — “the bottomless pit”. The question still remains, along with another: Just when was he bound and cast into this bottomless pit and when is his thousand year sentence up???***
Satan was bound at the beginning of the Millennium. He will be released to deceive the nations again at the end of the Millennium.
Well, first of all, the text of Josephus says that "upon burning of the holy house itself" they brought the ensigns "to" the temple, not "into" as your misquote has it here. That's a big difference.
Why would the Romans bring their ensigns "into" a burning building? They wouldn't and they didn't according to Josephus's text. It says clearly that they set them "over against the eastern gate" -- that is outside the temple. Those ensigns NEVER entered the temple.
And just exactly when did this Millenium begin????
No it's all very real. Yet Jesus cursed the fig tree and it burned up and withered, even to the roots.
For the gifts and callings of God are without reprentence (Rom.8:29)
Human life continues from those left alive after the Great Tribulation ends (Matthew 25) and there is a population explosion and life is prolonged over the 1000 year period.
And, for the record, the "bottomless pit" and the "chains" of Rev. 20 are symbols. The "strong man" of Matthew 12 is a symbol. The binding of Satan is real.
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