An Honest Debate/Whoeveristhirsty.com

Just for the sake for discussion, here’s a common amil answer to the charge of “replacement theology.” I’ve heard guys like John Piper, Greg Beale, or NT Wright give this sort of reply.

It’s not that God replaced Israel with the church. It’s more that God expanded Israel to now include Gentiles.

How would you address that sort of objection?

Here’s another question that I have.

Traditionally, premil theology and a future for Israel go together, but do they have to?

Couldn’t somebody hold to a future for Israel, and yet interpret Rev. 20 in amil fashion? So the fulfillment of the promises would be in the new heavens and earth, and not in a 1000 yr reign?

Just curious.

Hi Daniel,
As to your first question, yes, I’ve heard the interpretation you reference. I cannot find any scriptural support for it, but I’ve heard it. I would agree that we are spirituall descendants of Abraham — so don’t quote the verses that say that — Ismael and Esau can also name Abraham as their father, that doesn’t make them Israelites. For that they would need to be descendants of Jacob (Israe); thus, the “Children of Israel.” My reading of the epistles is not that Israel has been enlarged, but that the church is an entirely new man in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male or female.

As to your second question; If words like “Israel” do not really mean Israel, and any text can be spiritualized, then I suppose you can come up with an interpretation that makes the scriptures mean whatever you want them to say. This is why there could have never been Amillennialism had there been no Origen. He have them their hermenuetic.

I’m reminded by your question of an incident from early in my ministry. A woman from the Unity church started attending our church in Denver and you could see the confussion on her face when I preached (not an uncommon problem I am sure, but hers was an extreme case). She asked to meet with me to clear up her confussion. She began by asking me to define a number of words she had heard me use in my sermon, words like Jesus, Paul, the Cross, heaven, etc. Now I was confussed. I told her that when I spoke of Jesus I meant Jesus of Nazareth. She was surprised that I took words like Jesus literally. In unity they gave every substanitive word a spiritual meaning. She gave me here dictionary. It was about 2 inches thick. Once I looked through it I understood her problem. Nothing meant what it really meant. Every word had a spiritualized meaning. An ordinary sentence in a sermon them, completely confussed her because the words I used had contradictory spiritual meaning. I explained that when I speak, unless other wise noted, the words I used were defined the way Webster’s defined the. Soon she accepted Christ and begin to grow. She was freed for the deceptoin of a cult just by letting words mean what they mean and sentence and paragraphs the same.

Mark, sorry that I haven’t been able to reply for awhile. It’s been a busy season of ministry (our new youth pastor just started this past week). But I did read your reply to my question about essential doctrines and found it stimulating.

Anyway, my first thought is that it’s ironic you chose the name Bob Smith, since that’s the name of the former chair of the world missions department at Moody who resigned because of adultery.

But back to the topic at hand. I think your clarification between essential for right doctrine and essential for salvation is crucial. Most Christians won’t agree on every point of theology, but it’s important to not run around throwing people into the ‘heresy’ camp over every point. So I appreciate your careful nuancing there.

However, I’m still a little confused as to how amillennialism is anti-Semitic. I read your thoughts above, and don’t really have any major disagreements. My only comment is that if God decides he can re-interpret his chosen people (and if Galatians 3:29 is a valid proof-text of that), then I think it’s up to us to re-examine our view of God’s integrity instead of calling him out. But I still think the textual burden of proof there is on the A-mill person, and I don’t fully buy that train of thought because I think it’s easier to explain a strange use of ‘Israel’ in Galatians than to say each prophet didn’t mean Israel in the original intent of their writing. In any event, I’m progressive dispensationalist, so we mostly agree.

But my point on essential stuff mainly centers around the fact that I don’t see how a person’s eschatology affects their sanctification process … which I would argue is the most important thing for every believer in their remaining time before death/Jesus coming back. I can also see how the A-mill position would render the Jewish people obsolete, but I don’t see it (functioning properly in line with the whole of the Bible) as anti-Semitic.

Doesn’t Paul love the Jewish people in Romans 9-11, a passage that should set a good example to us? Doesn’t the NT speak out strongly against mistreating other people? Doesn’t Romans 12 tell us to live at peace with all men, as far as it depends on us? I don’t see how anyone (a, pre or post-mill) could read those passages and conclude that any ethnic group could be discriminated against. I would submit that anti-Semitism (if propogated by a-mill people) comes from sinful motives and a wrong outworking on a-mill thought rather than as a necessary outworking of a wrong system of thought.

Hi Dale, It’s good to hear from you again. I was afraid my radical views scared you off.

Let me share a few thoughts with you. First, your referenceGalations 3:29; I do not think it is a proff text that Christ has reinterpreted his chosen people. While it is impossible to be a Jew (minus conversion) without being a descendant of Abraham, not all descendents of Abraham are Israelites. Abraham was promised that the would be the father of many nations, and so he has become. The Arabs can say that they are descendants of Abraham, but they would become very angry with you if you said, “well, that makes you Israelis.” The Edomites, as well as the Mideonites, could also claim Abrahamic descent, but they weren’t Israel either. To be Israel one must be a descendant of Jacob (Israel), thus, the sons of Israel.

Paul’s point in Galations is not that Israel has been re-definded, but that the promise of Justification by faith was given to Abraham before there was an Israel (Jacob). I think the idea that someone would interpret Galations as writing Israel out of their covenants with God would have horified Paul. His point was that thes promise was given before circumcision to show that the promise is not not just to the circumcized (who inherit the coveant and have circumcission as a sign of the covenant).

Had Paul said that we inherit the temporal covenant made with Jacob (Israel) then he would indeed be redefining Israel. But that’s not what the text says. Further, I am not calling out God, but those who dishonor him with their theology.
Now as to the anti-semitism thing. I will, if I have time, write another post on this subject, but suffice it to say for now that I have been interested in this topic for years. And while I am not an expert in anti-semitism, I dare say that because of my long standing interest in the topic I have probably read more about it and thought more about it than most evangelical Christians. I would go so far as to say most evangelicals have not even read a book on the subject, I have read a number.

My particular interest in the subject has been seeking an answer to the point raised by Jonah Goldhagen in his book, a moral reckoning, “Christianity is a religion of love that teaches its member the highest moral principles for acting well. Love your neighbor. Seek peace. Help those in need. Sympathize with and raise up the oppressed. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Christianity is a religion that consecrated at its core and, historically spread throughout its domain a megatherian hatred of one group of people: the Jews….This hatred—Christianity’s betrayal of its own essential and good moral principles – led Christians, over the course of almost two millennia, to commit many grave crimes and other injuries against Jews, including mass murder…The question for Christians…is, What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of a hatred and harm[?]

I was attempting to find an answer to this question before I came accross it in Goldhagen’s book. But when I shared some of Goldhagen’s thoughts with my senior pastor — who, like you, is having trouble accepting my argument — he referred me to a number of articles by John Neuhaus, defending the Catholic Church against Goldhagen’s charges. These articles attacked the details of Goldhagen’s books and articles in an attempt to make the argument that his mistakes somehow destroy the overall thesis of his book, and the very serious charges he makes against the Catholic church in particular and Christianity in general.

While I too find errors in Goldhagens book and have problems with some of his arguments and his proposed solution, the question he asked remains a powerful indictment that neither Chathoics or Protestants have adequately addressed. I have been seek the answer to the question of another book on anti-semitism, “Why the Jews?” And as I have read and thought I have formulated my own theories as to the Origin and the cause of the most virulent form of this virus, Christian anti-semitism. I have formed these theories because, to my knowledge, I don’t know of one evangelical who has truly set out to answer Goldhagen’s question. I will be sharing some of my thinking on this blog. In fact, that is one of the reason why I started this blog. Suffice it to say for now, that I think Paul was dealing with proto anti-Semitism in his letter to the Romans. I think it is reason for Romans 9-11. I would challenge you to read these chapters afresh, with the assumption that Paul was addressing a growing hatred of the Jews by the gentile Christians in Rome. I think it will give you an entirely new perspective — and I think, the an importatn one — in this protion of Paul’s argument.

I need to break off for now, but let me make this summary statement, and repeat something I said in response to one of Tyce’s posts; my ongoing study of the phenomenon of Christain anti-semitism has led me to conclude that replacement theology, and the primary vehicle for its dispersal, amillennial theology, has been the philosophic foundation and the theological excuse for almost two millennia of anti-semitism.

Mark, I’m not familiar with Goldhagen’s book nor have I read extensively on Christian anti-Semitism, though I don’t deny it exists (see especially the so-called Christian pastors in Nazi Germany and their teaching).

To be fair, I’ll suspend judgment for now and wait to read more of your posts and better understand your arguments. Basically, I’ll give you the floor to see if you can convince me.

Thanks, Dale, that’s all I could hope to ask for from anyone. The question I asked Tyce but forgot to include in my last response was; If I’m wrong, what’s your explanation? Be thinking about that, because if I am barking up the wrong tree I want to find the right one to bark up. I am really looking for answers. I want to stress that I know I may be wrong, but if I’m right the implications are enormous. If I have stumbled upon the cause for the effect thenwe have a reached a starting point in addressing Goldhaggen’s second question — What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of a hatred and harm?

[...] Christian anti-Semites have always said that Jewish unbelief cancels the covenant relationship between the actual sons of Israel and God, and it is interesting that we find this foundational doctrine present in Rome in 57 AD. I think it’s also important to note that Paul completely rejected it in the strongest possible language (Note, Paul’s argument is the same argument I make in a post on An Honest Debate, An Argument with Myself About Amillennialim). [...]