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covenants, believing that their spiritual destiny is either to perish or become a part of the new religion that superseded Judaism (whether Christianity or Islam).1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.
Read Ryrie’s first edition of “Dispensationalism Today.”
That’s my only planned interchange with you on this topic for the rest of the year, and I expect you to make me regret it. But if you wanted an answer, you’d now have it.
I’ll dust off my copy. I not sure if I have a first edition. DOes it matter?
***It’s very like talking with a Roman Catholic, isn’t it? Try to talk Bible, and all you get is unshakable dogma.***
That is because the issue is not are there seperate dispensations as the WHOLE church has understood the word, but is the theology, eschatology, and method of Bible slicing of Dispensationalism Biblical. Therefore, you must answer the charge, not simply ignore it and focus on something which you think you can get agreement.
The level of dirt ignorance is amusing, but not interesting.
LOL!
tabsternager acknowledges that Eden is a separate period of time. To be fair with him, he did not agree with more than that. Do you agree with him?
The issue is that there are separate eras/periods/epochs/whatever-you-want-to-call-them clearly evident in the Bible’s review of religious history.
Do you agree with that?
Let me repeat myself....
the issue is not are there seperate dispensations as the WHOLE church has understood the word, but is the theology, eschatology, and method of Bible slicing of Dispensationalism Biblical. You must answer the charge, not simply ignore it and focus on something which you think you can get agreement.
It sounds to me like you are agreeing that separate epochs/eras/etc. do exist.
Good. I agree with that.
Now, do you agree that God was in charge during the “era” of Eden?
It was not a "separate period of time", since Adam lived before and after the fall.
The Westminster Confession distinguishes between the covenant of works that was operative before man’s fall and the covenant of grace after the fall. I agree with that distinction.
I also agree with the distinction, even "dispensation", of the old covenant and the new covenant, both being "dispensations" of the one covenant of grace.
In the future there will be eternity, the new heavens and new earth, where the righteous will dwell in their resurrection state.
Beyond that I do not admit to any useful, biblical distinctions in God’s salvation program.
You've given your answer. You don't consider The Garden of Eden to be a separate period of time.
Personally, I think there was a clear beginning and ending mentioned in the Bible itself.
I really don't see how we can continue discussing the Bible together.
You seem to be using a method of analysis and interpretation other than the evidence presented by the text.
It's been interesting discussing with you.
Here’s an interesting quote I’m sure you’re familiar with:
“As a dispensation, GRACE BEGINS with the death and resurrection of Christ....THE POINT OF TESTING IS NO LONGER LEGAL OBEDIENCE AS THE CONDITION OF SALVATION, but acceptance or rejection of Christ, with good works as a fruit of salvation” — C.I. Scofield Scofield Reference Bible, p.1115
Do you agree with that quote? If you do, where in the Bible is there support for that belief (chapter and verse, please)?
I’ve never read Schofield before, so I don’t know if you’ve left anything out of the quote with the “....” between Christ and THE POINT.
Are there missing words?
***It sounds to me like you are agreeing that separate epochs/eras/etc. do exist.***
You will have to define your terms.
“tabsternager acknowledges that Eden is a separate period of time.”
Maybe my answer wasn’t clear.
Again, I’m no scholar, but I think it was a unique time before the fall because man was without sin.
But since the fall, there has always been only one plan of salvation and one people of God, and it’s always been by faith alone.
I hope that’s clearer now.
Do you agree that Eden is a separate era/period/epoch/age/etc?
Meaning simply “is it a distinctive period of time?”
Again, you need to define your terms.
I’m simply asking if it is a distinctive period of time. I think it was. I think in the case of Eden that it had a clear beginning and ending.
Who do you think was in charge during the period of the Garden of Eden?
Correct, given my interpretation of the question.
Personally, I think there was a clear beginning and ending mentioned in the Bible itself.
There is a clear beginning and ending to many things in the Bible. There was a beginning and ending to the life of Abraham. There was a beginning and ending to the exile of Israel in Egypt. There was a beginning and ending to the wanderings in Sinai. There was a beginning and ending to the time of the Judges. There was a beginning and ending to Babylonian exile. There was a beginning and ending to the time of the minor prophets.
Perhaps I’m missing something by your use of the phrase "separate period of time". Are you speaking of something like an era or age? Like the Middle Ages? Or the Victorian Era?
There is a sense in which the Victorian Era is different from our own, but that does not make it a "separate period of time".
The point you are trying to make is very cloudy, perhaps because you lack biblical support.
I really don't see how we can continue discussing the Bible together.
We were discussing the theories of dispensationalism, which on this subject have little to do with the Bible. E.g., can you show me from the Bible where seven dispensations are delinieated using Bible principles as opposed to the theories of Darby and Scofield?
You seem to be using a method of analysis and interpretation other than the evidence presented by the text.
Hardly.
It's been interesting discussing with you.
What discussion? We never really got there because you were just looking for me to fall into a trap.
But here’s a proposal. Let’s take up the proposition: Dispensationalists use the word "dispensation" in the same way the Bible uses the term.
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