Church History: The Protestant Reformation and its Enemy the Vatican

This post is to be mostly a collection of links to talks and sermons about Roman Catholic efforts to destroy the Protestant Reformation.

1)  Here is a link to a talk by ex-Catholic-priest Richard Bennett,  Response of the Papacy to the Reformation, Part I which is a historical sketch of the Counter Reformation, or Roman efforts to undo the effects of the Reformation, principally through the Jesuits from the time of Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola to the present, including remarks on 

• The success of Jesuit education in turning minds toward Romanism; 
• The Oxford Movement in 19th century England to Romanize the Anglican Church;
• Dispensationalism, its Futurist eschatology & the Scofield Bible;
• Vatican Concordats with various nations including Germany through Hitler;
• Alliances with Islamic states;  a "call for peace" signed by "Christians" (acommonword.com);  Muslim-Catholic Forum;
• As a nation state Vatican makes civil laws and civil agreements about marriage, economics, property rights, laws about education, what can be on the radio; can shut down churches;  How Vatican increases through civil power.
• How Romanism fulfills scripture about the Harlot Church;
• How Dispensationalism blinds the Church to Romanism as the Antichrist

Bennett has the website Berean Beacon.org where you can find his personal testimony about his life as a priest and how he came to Christ.

2)  This talk is really Response of the Papacy to the Reformation, Part 2, but under the title Papal Rome, the European Union, Antichrist, Prophecy, Jesuits, Reformation, Martyrs  in which Michael De Semlyn of Richard Bennett's ministry gives the history of Rome's intention to recreate the Holy Roman Empire in Europe, showing among other things the Roman Catholic symbolism in the formation of the European Union.   [And here's a link where someone has very helpfully made a transcript of this talk with footnotes.]

• Papal Pronouncements on Europe:  8/31/2003 Pope John Paul II dedicated Europe to the Virgin Mary.
• "Last Sunday" (date is not given) the Pope "urged" that the final draft of the European Constitution recognize explicitly "the Christian roots" of Europe, by which of course he means only Roman Catholicism.  "...As described by the London Sunday Telegraph, 'The Pope is calmly preparing to assume the mantle which he solemnly believes to be his divine right, that of the new Holy Roman Emperor reigning from the Urals to the Atlantic'.  [July 21, 1991]

3)  Alan Cairns has a great Irish accent from his homeland ("faith" is "fee'yeth," "grace" is "gree-ess") but preached in South Carolina for many years before his retirement a few years ago.  He has in his sermons what I think must be the strongest Reformation emphasis I've ever heard.  You can find him at Sermon Audio.com as well as Richard Bennett,  Here's the Sermon Audio page of Posts on "Reformation" by Alan Cairns.

This sermon from 1995 The Reformation, A Battle to be Fought and Won Again is a powerful reminder of the truths of the Reformation and our need to continually be reminded of them, to study them and defend them.  He makes it clear that Inquisitional style persecutions of Protestants by Catholics are ongoing in predominantly Catholic countries, not something that ended centuries ago as we are so often misled into thinking.  There is a glitch in the audio around 6:36 where he has apparently begun discussing these persecutions but it is interrrupted.  How much is left out I don't know.

4)  In this sermon from 2004, The Failures of the Reformation, Cairns answers some familiar attempts to discredit the Reformers, often by Fundamentalists, and offers some thoughts of his own about how the Reformation stopped short of full success.  I found particularly interesting his remarks about the Anabaptists, who are often characterized as victims of the Reformers and generally get a positive press from today's Reformed teachers.  Cairns presents them in a less-than-positive light and claims they are NOT the forerunners of today's Baptists as is so often thought.

Side note:  One might suspect Jesuits behind the smear campaign but Cairns doesn't mention that possibility.  Fundamentalists with no sense of history are apparently sufficient for the task.

5)  [1/18] The Lord just led me to this one, A Historical Sketch of the Persecution of Christians (2006) by Joe Morecraft, and what a powerful sermon this is, on the persecutions of believers from the earliest days of the Church, so effectively preached that no matter how much I've already learned about these things, which is really quite a bit, I feel convicted more deeply than ever of my own cowardice and shrinking from the true call to martyrdom for Christ.  I thank the Lord that He seems to be leading me to deeper and deeper expressions of the life in Christ as I work on this blog post, and all I can do is pray for even a tenth of the courage of the martyrs down the centuries who died as true witnesses.

• AMERICAN CHRISTIAN COMPROMISERS.  Around 28:00 he mentions those "Christians" who are in favor with the world, who are invited to inaugurations etc., the compromisers as opposed to the true Christians Christ told us the world will hate.  Billy Graham who is a closet Romanist comes immiedately to mind of course.  But others might take note who are tempted in the same direction.
• TWO AMERICAN HERITAGES.  Around 29:08 he starts talking about two streams of American heritage, saying that Christians belong to the older one, the one that goes back to the original Puritan and Pilgrim settlers and NOT TO THE GENERATION OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES OR "FOUNDERS" which he characterizes as UNITARIANS.  I hadn't heard this message before except from from Chris Pinto.   Morecraft says Teach your children to be patriotic toward that older heritage and to shun the newer heritage!  Interesting!  This must be a stream of preaching I've somehow just never encountered before. 

Cairns and Morecraft are both Presbyterians and such powerful preachers of the truth I could be persuaded to become a Presbyterian, a REAL Presbyterian, not like that liberal Presbyterian USA church I once belonged to.  Why didn't I discover them earlier?  I probably didn't deserve to, that's the most likely reason, because I AM a weak cowardly Christian.  He who has shall receive more...   Every little thing we do in the right direction will move us further along that path.  Every little dying to self we do will give us the ability to die more.  I pray for the strengthening of the Church, and if it be the Lord's will that there might still be revival, that Christians who are giving in to compromises in so many many ways might see their error and repent, that so many who still live in complete darkness might see the great Light and be saved.  IT CAN'T HAPPEN UNTIL THE CHURCH LEARNS TO DIE, and that can start with recognizing and repenting of our sins, and our sins of compromising with the world are MAJOR these days.

6)  Here's a talk that's just chock full of information that's new to me: History of the Conflict in Ireland by Ivan Foster.   It's a very balanced presentation of the strife in Ireland which covers the effects of deceitful machinations by Romanists plus the neglect and indifference of apostate and ecumenized Protestants both English and Irish.

From the Sermon Audio page on Ivan Foster:

Mr. Foster, a former member of Omagh District Council and the Northern Ireland Assembly, believes it is essential for Christians to actively strive for the preservation of civil and religious liberty. Such striving must be done in the knowledge that only by national repentance and a return to God and Biblical Protestantism can Ulster be saved. 

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POST UNDER CONSTRUCTION

{I'm still working on this post and have already rearranged and added to the material above, and expect to do more as I continue to study this topic.  I hope I will be forgiven for continuing to work on this after it's published.}   

The Popes and the Reformation -- Alan Cairns (1998)
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=6144

The Counter-Reformation -- Alan Cairns (1997)
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=6030

The Anabaptist Reformation - Alan Cairns (2007)

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=10210718235710

One Bible, One Gospel - Alan Cairns (2002)
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=21702133347
This is Cairns' answer to Dispensationalism

One Bible, One Gospel, Part 2 - Alan Cairns
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=2240222408

Dispensationalists are true Christians but misled by Rome

I am aware that major players on both sides of this Harbinger dispute are Dispensationalists, and very likely Jonathan Cahn as well. 

It's one of the areas of disagreement between me and others even on my side of this issue, such as Jan Markell's ministry, and I've posted on some topics where it is a problem I have to mention, but it never is such a problem as it is with David James and the other critics of The Harbinger.  I don't know how to account for this, I can only figure there are some Dispensationalists who are theologically more rigid than others, but I'm now completely convinced that it's the critics' Dispensationalism that is the root of their attack.  

And I should say that I do not regard this as an issue to divide Christians.  Angry though I can be to see how Dispensationalist tenets are being used against The Harbinger, it's not the PEOPLE that are the problem.  I'm not dividing from Christians on this, I consider them all to be brothers and sisters in Christ and good Christians  -- merely in thrall to a truly bad theological and hermeneutical system.  

The first thing they accused The Harbinger of was Replacement Theology.  David James realizes that's not the case but he still applies his Dispensationalist assumptions to the point of claiming that Cahn has put America in the place of Israel in some sense.  This to my mind is utterly absurd and not borne out in the book, although if it were it wouldn't necessarily be an offense to my Reformed views anyway.  It's simply false, absurd.  But David James is a nice guy and a good Christian man from all I can tell, perhaps simply too good an exponent of the Dispensationalist system of hermeneutics and theology.  This is NOT personal.

I don't believe there is such a thing as Replacement Theology, that's a Dispensationalist misrepresentation of the Reformed position.  (I gather the Reformed position is called Covenant Theology but I'm not up enough on all these different categories to know quite what that means yet so I'm simply referring to the whole theological divide as Reformed versus Dispensational.)  

The very term "Replacement Theology" makes one a Dispensationalist because their main tenet is that Israel and the Church are to be regarded as separate entities, so that the Reformed's seeing the promises as all fulfilled in the Church rather than in Israel is to their mind a "replacement" of Israel by the Church.  The Reformed side believe that the Church always WAS Israel from the beginning and is the fulfillment of all the promises, there is no replacement because there never were two separate entities, and the Old Testament is entirely a preparation for the coming of the Messiah Jesus in whom all the promises are fulfilled. 

However, I'm not Reformed ENOUGH according to some of the Reformed I know, who believe that the state of Israel has NO biblical justification whatever.  Pastor Borgman's studies on these things that I recently posted are very very good, but I still end up thinking there HAS to be SOME purpose for the state of Israel in the end times, and it helps to my mind that the Protestant Reformers also had this point of view.  You never know where I'll end up if I keep studying all this but this is where I am now and where I've been for some time. 

I've been particularly influenced by Chris Pinto who gave the information that the Reformers believed there is still to be a role for national Israel, also that the Dispensationalist system of theology is part of the Roman Church's Counter-Reformation as formulated by their Jesuit attack dogs.  Also Arminianism.  They've certainly succeeded in their aim to get the onus off the Vatican as the seat of the Antichrist which was the Reformed position and in fact the position of true Christians back 1500 years or so, also succeeded in undermining formerly solid Protestant theology.  The Futurism of the Dispensationalist camp is a major coup as now everybody is looking for some personality to be the Antichrist who has nothing to do with the Roman Church, though it was the papacy itself, pope after pope after pope, who were recognized as THE Antichrist until all these new theories took over.  Interestingly, Preterism also has the same effect of taking the heat off Rome and is also a new invention by Jesuits.  If they don't get you one way they'll get you the other and the Church falls for it.

Lord willing, and if He tarries, and I live long enough, I want to pursue all these connections, learn more, and be part of the Counter-CounterReformation.

Some more background on Dispensationalism

I'll never master all this theological stuff, I can hardly keep most of it in mind for any length of time.  But once again I feel a need to TRY to get a better understanding of this pernicious doctrine called Dispensationalism, in this case because it's the main source of the criticism of The Harbinger.  If it weren't for this sort of discovery, of how a theological system can so unfairly assault other Christians and bring suspicion on valid biblical reasoning from another theological system, I'd so much rather just forget all this stuff.

But anyway, as I'd heard many times but never really checked out, it's fair to call Dispensationalism a JESUIT PLOT.  The link above gives a historical sketch, and includes this summation:

Through the espousal of Jesuit Futurism by J. N. Darby and his followers, some one thousand five-hundred years of orthodox Christian prophetic history was discarded. Rome wants everybody to believe that the interpretation placed on Bible prophecy concerning anti-Christ has nothing whatever to do with the Roman Church. The Papacy wants us to believe that when Rome fell prophetic fulfilment halted, and will continue to be fulfilled from the time of the supposed Rapture

Some quotes from some anti-dispensationalists from that same site:

"My brother, I am a constant reader of my Bible, and I soon found that what I was taught to believe did not always agree with what my Bible said. I came to see that I must either part company with John Darby, or my precious Bible, and I chose to cling to my Bible and part from Mr. Darby." George Müeller (1805–1898)

I am quite convinced that all the promises to Israél are found, are finding and will find their perfect fulfilment in the Church. It is true that in time past, in my expositions, I gave a definite place to Israél in the purposes of God. I have now come to the conviction, as I have just said, that it is, the new and spiritual Israél that is intended. G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945)

Dispensationalism is a device of the enemy, designed to rob the children of no small part of that bread which their heavenly Father has provided for their souls; a device wherein the wily serpent appears as an angel of light, feigning to "make the Bible a new book" by simplifying much in it which perplexes the spiritually unlearned. It is sad to see how widely successful the devil has been by means of this subtle innovation. A. W. Pink (1886-1952)

It is mortifying to remember that I not only held and taught these novelties myself, but that I even enjoyed a complacent sense of superiority because thereof, and regarded with feelings of pity and contempt those who had not received the "new light" and were unacquainted with this up-to-date method of "rightly dividing the word of truth." For I fully believed what an advertising circular says in presenting "Twelve Reasons why you should use THE SCOFIELD REFERENCE BIBLE," namely, that: "First, the Scofield Bible outlines the Scriptures from the standpoint of DISPENSATIONAL TRUTH, and there can be no adequate understanding or rightly dividing of the Word of God except from the standpoint of dispensational truth."

What a slur is this upon the spiritual understanding of the ten thousands of men, "mighty in the Scriptures," whom God gave as teachers to His people during all the Christian centuries before "dispensational truth" (or dispensational error), was discovered! And what an affront to the thousands of men of God of our own day, workmen that need not to be ashamed, who have never accepted the newly invented system! Yet I was among those who eagerly embraced it (upon human authority solely, for there is none other) and who earnestly pressed it upon my fellow Christians. I am deeply thankful, however, that the time came (it was just ten years ago) when the inconsistencies and self contradictions of the system itself, and above all, the impossibility of reconciling its main positions with the plain statements of the Word of God, became so glaringly evident that I could not do otherwise than renounce it. Philip Mauro (1859-1952).

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Ex-Catholic-Priest Richard Bennett is a great source of knowledge about the history of Catholicism and its plots against Protestantism.  In this talk he only mentions Dispensationalism briefly, as one of Catholicism's plots so it's not a study of that theology itself, just a confirmation of how it serves Rome. 

Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, Antichrist, Dispensationalism, Jesuits, Islam ...

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The following links are to a series of teachings by Pastor Borgman I may have heard when he gave them though I'd forgotten most of it if so.  It's very thorough but although he mentions that it was a Jesuit who invented it to get Rome out from under the label of Antichrist, he doesn't pursue the implication that Rome is still plotting against the Reformation and succeeding.

The Origins of Dispensationalism

The Spread and Influence of Dispensationalism

The Teaching of Dispensationalism

Of particular interest to me in the third of this series was Pastor Borgman's observation that Dispensationalism engenders an attitude of suspicion toward those who don't believe as they do, which is what I've been noticing about the attitude toward Jonathan Cahn.  And again, it's not that I'd be completely in favor of Cahn's theological system either, as I have my own objections to elements of the Messianic movement, but overall he's completely within orthodoxy as far as I can tell from his book and information at his site, and the suspicion creates doubts that are undeserved and unfairly poison people's minds against him.

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You can find arguments against all this of course, even calling this point of view a conspiracy theory and so on. 

A teaching on Hermeneutics from the Reformed perspective, specifically opposing Dispensationalism

Since I've identified Dispensationalism as the source of so much of the craziness the critics of The Harbinger are bringing against it, in an effort to get a better grip on the theological issues I've been listening to a series on hermeneutics from a Reformed perspective and skipped to the two parts that clearly apply to this question. 

This is a series by a local pastor, in fact the pastor of the church I'd be attending if I were attending church, and I have to give lots of caveats here because he doesn't agree with me about some things so I don't want to make it appear that there's some kind of accord that doesn't exist.  I simply strongly appreciate this particular teaching and am learning from it.   I'm already basically Reformed in my thinking, but this particular teaching deepens that perspective a great deal.

As for The Harbinger I have no idea what Pastor Borgman thinks of it, if he even knows about it, and it could well be that he would have many objections to it.  

I'm also aware that a Reformed perspective probably doesn't accord with Jonathan Cahn's theology either, which I've felt all along even as I've been defending his book.  But this isn't a problem with The Harbinger's interpretation of Isaiah 9:10, which is pretty simple and straightforward.  The only reason Dispensationalism is an issue is that it is apparently the basis for some of the objections of this particular camp of critics that I've been arguing against, who fault Cahn's interpretation for supposedly denying the state of Israel its biblical preeminence according to their theological system. 

This elevation of Israel as the main object of the Old Testament is precisely what the talk linked below answers.

Hoping that covers all necessary caveats, I want to recommend listening to these talks at the links, the first one titled

Hermeneutics: Apostolic Exegesis - How the NT interprets the OT

Toward the end of the talk [about 1:07:40], he says this: 

So what do you have [referring to Luke 24]?  You have Jesus interpreting the Old Testament in a way that pointed to ... Israel? 

To who?  To Himself!

You should be really thankful that I'm completely out of time because this is a soapbox issue for me.  To read the Old Testament as if it points us to the nation Israel, either in the past, the present or the future, is to miss the divinely appointed purposes of the Old Testament.  Jesus said the whole thing was about Him.  It all points to Him.

And here's the following talk that continues the same theme:

Hermeneutics: How do Jesus & the Apostles Interpret the Old Testament

Pastor Borgman did a series on Isaiah some years ago, and this is the sermon on Isaiah 9

New Criticism of The Harbinger: Douma, Pt. 4 The Shemitah

The other point I wanted to get to but didn't in the last post is Douma's remarks about the concept of the Shemitah as as it is used in The Harbinger.  There's a lot to say about this concept that I'm not going to get to, I just want to respond to Douma's main point.

First as usual we encounter the Dispensationalist framework which is what is making an ungodly and unbiblical confusion out of the whole discussion, when Douma objects to Cahn's applying the concept of the Shemitah to America at all, since according to that system of Bible-mangling it was

meant only for Israel.

He condemns Cahn for applying it to America, quoting page 159 of The Harbinger:

The sign of the Shemitah, given to a nation that has driven God out of its life

 Interesting that he doesn't quote the earlier part of that dialogue:

Yes, but what does it have to do with America.  Ameica has never had a Sabbath Year. 

That's correct.  It was only commanded for one nation.  But the issue here isn't the literal observance of the Shemitah or any requirement to keep it....  The issue here... is its dynamic, its effect and its consequence.... The issue is The Shemitah as a sign.

Cahn, in other words, is clearly not applying the Shemitah to America in the same sense it was given to Israel.  I don't want to get into that here except to say that I think he observed -- emphasis on OBSERVED -- somethng interesting about a pattern of seven years that actually OCCURRED in America that led to the connection with the biblical concept of the Shemitah. That is, it isn't something he took from the Bible to make it fit America, it was the other way around.

Be that as it may, for another discussion another time, Douma, having found Cahn at fault for applying the Shemitah to America at all, says 

Are you and I bound to sabbatical rest laws?  Isn't he saying as Peter did that we Gentiles have to start living like Jews?  [41:59]  How is that not a distortion of the goepsl?  Where is the criticism of that?  How is Cahn not trying to build up a wall that was taken down by Christ in Ephesians 2, the wall of separation, the Mosaic law that separated Jews and Gentiles.  Is not Cahn rebuilding that wall once again?  Of course he is.  So this is a gospel issue.  He's resstablishing the Mosaic Law and now it applies to you and I [sic].  [42:28]

No, I'm free from that in Christ.

Here can be seen one major confusion that needs to be untangled.  Douma fails to distinguish between the inheritance of freedom in Christ that we have AS BELIEVERS and the condition of the unbeliever, but also between individuals and nations.  The Harbinger is about the nation of America.  It is the NATION that is coming under judgment by God.  That will certainly affect individuals, both believers and unbelievers, but the judgment as such is about the nation and not the individuals. 

God deals with individuals individually.  That is a different thing altogether from His judgment of nations as nations. 

9/11 should have been recognized as judgment on America by anyone with any biblical sense at all, and I have to say most of the nation has no biblical sense so it's no wonder it was missed.  America as a nation is corporately in defiance of God, only too well described in Isaiah 9:10 but also given a special confirmation and emphasis by the existence of the harbingers as described in Cahn's book, and it all relates specifically to 9/11. 

But this does not in any way imply anything about the individuals who were killed on that day.  We have no way of knowing how God dealt with them and it's none of our business.  Some were no doubt believers, some weren't.  We can say that God showed a great deal of mercy in the midst of that judgment, in that relatively so few were killed when so many thousands more could have been killed.  There are miracle stories galore about that day. 

Judgment on a nation is NOT at all the same thing as judgment on individuals.

So when we think about elements of the Old Testament coming to apply to America today we have to keep the nation separate in our thinking from individuals, either believers or unbelievers.

Yes, we BELIEVERS are free from the Law in Christ, but unbelievers are not but "abide under the wrath of God" as scripture says, and nations are still corporately dealt with by the Law in the fashion laid down in scripture for Israel.  The Mosaic law is really a revelation of The Law that runs this universe.   It's no arbitrary thing.  It inexorably rules, it inexorably judges.  That is why we NEED the gospel to rescue us from it as individuals, and we can ONLY be rescued AS individuals. 

But outside the gospel The Law goes right on ruling and judging.  The Mosaic Law was the basis for Blackstone's Commentaries on the law that used to be the foundation for English and American law.  No more of course since the Bible as any kind of authority in our world has been brought down by the powers of evil.  But once upon a time The Mosaic Law was taken to be the foundation for all civilized laws in this fallen world.

THAT IS AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE THING FROM THE GOSPEL.

Cahn is NOT reestablishing the wall of separation, he is simply doing what sane intelligent Christians, unhampered by idiotic Dispensationalist presuppositions, have ALWAYS done, apply the Law to NATIONS.

The confusion in the critical attacks on The Harbinger is truly dangerous -- again, far beyond The Harbinger.  Maybe it's because of this truly unbiblical system of theology that so many pastors in this nation had no clue that 9/11 was God's judgment in the first place.   These critics, even when they think the nation deserves judgment for all the sins they can enumerate that all conservative Christians agree about, seem to be strangely unable to be SURE of it.  Well, we MAY be coming under judgment they say, or maybe we're GOING TO BE some time in the near future.  This is a terrible blindness and it's sad to think it might be theologically induced blindness.

How the deck is stacked against The Harbinger --updated

Just a little sketch off the top of my head of impressions I'm getting from my first read-through of David James' book, The Harbinger, Fact or Fiction?\

[Later: I've carefully read the first half of the book and taken many notes; the last half I've barely skimmed through, so I have to apologize for giving a wrong impression about having read the book through. To respond to this book would take a book in itself. Since I am fascinated with all this, not to mention indignant against what I see as unfair treatment of Jonathan Cahn, I may end up with the equivalent of a book.

So far, through the first half of the book, I find only a few things to make any kind of concession on:

If James is right about the Assyrians, Cahn is seriously in the wrong in connecting them with today's terrorists as he does. James makes a compelling case, that today's Assyrians are Christians, not Muslims. But Jonathan Cahn may be able to answer him from his own research, I don't know. I can't answer it myself so I have to leave it as an error in the book.

Also, I agree with James that it would have been better if Cahn had left out the reference to the Septuagint's rendering of Isaiah 9:10. Apparently he was wowed by the mention of a "tower" there, which adds a neat little confirmation to his theme, although none of today's translations from the Hebrew scriptures mentions a tower. And yes, the whole translation is different. Of course Cahn would not have referred to the whole verse if only because the harbingers all reflect today's translations. This seems to be a case where Cahn let himself be carried away by his love of drama and finding connections.

A third point is not quite as black and white. This is Cahn's attempt to explain the removal of the gigantic quarried stone that had been brought in to be the cornerstone of the planned Freedom Tower: Cahn explains it as the frustration of America's plan in parallel with the frustration of Israel's plan to rebuild, being a second expression of God's judgment, the first being the initial destruction and the intent to rebuild with hewn stone. To my mind this all depends on whether or not this frustration of plans can be demonstrated in Israel's case from the scripture. If it can then I'd probably accept the parallel in America. But my own way of thinking about the removal of the stone is that such a stone simply isn't needed in the modern context of steel skyscraper construction, BUT that the very fact that a hewn stone was brought in AT ALL demonstrates God's hand in showing the parallel between America's attitude of defiance and Israel's as described in Isaiah 9:10.

These things are not failures of biblical hermeneutics or any kind of doctrinal failure at all, they are merely errors of historical research or excessive zeal in making connections, which seems to be Cahn's particular gift, a gift that can get out of hand.

I do believe that the rest of James' objections as he lays them out in the first half of his book can be answered.]

The rest of this post is a brief overview of the MAIN problem with ALL the critics' attacks on the Harbinger: Their strict and exclusivistic adherence to a rigid version of Dispensational Theology:

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Discernment ministries usually work to identify serious failures of Christian doctrine, such as a denial of the Deity of Christ, which is the essential problem with denial of the Trinity; or advocacy of extrabiblical revelation (anything that is taken as authoritative outside the Bible, such as the traditions of Catholicism or the Book of Mormon), prophecies that contradict scripture, imputation of works of the flesh or the devil to the Holy Spirit and vice versa.

So it's rather strange to see these ministries going after Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger with such zeal, considering that they can't identify any such violations of the orthodox faith without indulging in tortuous reasoning (which I know I'll have to demonstrate when I can get to it).

What these particular discerners find against the book is predominantly a failure to adhere to their own strict version of dispensationalist theology.

Some of the ways the critics treat Cahn remind me of a kafkaesque nightmare in which nothing makes sense, you are found guilty of violating bizarre laws you never heard of before, and anything you say on your own behalf is used against you.

Cahn denies that he considers himself a prophet. But other people refer to him as a prophet and he doesn't correct them. He considers the message of the Harbinger to be prophetic, therefore what does that make him but a prophet? MY ANSWER: I think he's denying that he's a prophet in the biblical sense, since he claims no spiritual impartation from God, but doesn't object to a more casual use of the term since after all he is the one who discovered the harbingers which establish the prophetic message.

Cahn denies any sort of belief in replacement theology, by which national Israel is replaced, in this case by America. But the book gives the definite impression that America has replaced Israel. MY ANSWER: It would only give such an impression to a zealous dispensationalist who will not allow that the Old Testament could EVER apply to ANYTHING other than Israel.

Cahn denies that he finds America in Isaiah 9:10. But the book gives the definite impression that there is such a connection between America and Isaiah 9:10. MY ANSWER: All Cahn is denying is that somehow America is implicit in the verse, not that there is a connection between the verse and America. The connection does not exist in the verse itself but occurred in America, where the same spirit of Isaiah 9:10 has been expressed in many different ways, including by those uncanny harbingers.

Cahn denies that he believes that America is in covenant with God the same way Israel was, but the book gives the definite impression that such a covenant does exist. MY ANSWER: Seeing that America has been in a special relationship with God because of our godly Puritan and Pilgrim forefathers, a relationship that was even regarded as a covenant by some of them, is NOT the same thing as claiming identity with Israel, whose covenant was initiated BY God.

Cahn should have written a different book, and a major way it should have been different is that it should have dealt with end times themes, the rapture, the restoration of Israel, the return of Christ, the final judgment. These are all dispensationalist preoccupations at the present time, which apparently absolutely preclude a book that's only about America. MY ANSWER: Cahn's book is about AMERICA.

The book James thinks Cahn SHOULD have written is a book that a deep-dyed dispensationalist would have written. In fact James suggests an interesting plot for a novel that he himself should write.

It's just not the book Cahn wrote or wanted to write. The book Cahn wrote is about America, it is not about the end times, it is not about Israel etc. etc. etc.

The dispensationalist presupposition won't let him write such a book, it must be a different book, it must be about Israel and the Antichrist and the coming new world order, it simply cannot be about America because that doesn't fit with dispensationalist expectations.

The Harbinger Critics: The Dispensationalist Connection Part 3

David James in a comment to my first post below on dispensationalism in relation to The Harbinger says there is no such thing as a dispensationalist hermeneutic. I posted there the link to this article by Thomas Ice, which I will quote here:

Dispensational Hermeneutics
By Thomas Ice.

" Consistently literal or plain interpretation is indicative of a dispensational approach to the interpretation of the Scriptures," declared Charles Ryrie in 1965. " And it is this very consistency- the strength of dispensational interpretation- that irks the nondispensationalist and becomes the object of his ridicule." [1] " Consistently literal interpretation" was listed by Ryrie as the second most important sine qua non of dispensationalism, which forms the foundation for the most important essential, "the distinction between Israel and the Church."[2] Earl Radmacher, in 1979, went so far as to say that literal interpretation "is the 'bottom-line' of dispensationalism."[3] While the ridicule of nondispensationalists has continued, there also appear to be signs of hermeneutical equivocation within the ranks of dispensationalism.

Dispensational hermeneutics, as opposed to, say, Reformed hermeneutics or Covenant Theology hermeneutics, includes major major emphasis on Israel as opposed to the Church, as the main or even exclusive object of all the Old Testament prophecies and promises. Ice discusses variations on this, but it remains true that the distinction between Israel and the Church is "the most important essential."

There is also a very interesting discussion online by John MacArthur on the subject of dispensationalism, which I hope to get to. I've been told I'm a Progressive Dispensationalist because I do at least believe that Israel has a role to play in the last days, and that seems to be more or less MacArthur's position.

So eventually I'll be back with that.

The Harbinger Critics: The Dispensationalist Connection Part 2

As David James takes care to recognize throughout his book and especially in his last chapter, Final Thoughts, in general both supporters and critics of The Harbinger share a conservative Christian mindset or worldview, generally agree on all the main discernment issues involving cultic and apostate movements, and agree on the sins besetting America that deserve God's judgment, and I'd add that, for the most part, we also agree that we are in the last days.

As James puts it:

Whatever else may be problematic concerning the rest of the book he [Cahn] is absolutely correct in his assessment that America is in serious spiritual trouble.[THFOF p.102]

He also acknowledges that Cahn has emphasized the fact that God's judgment on a nation is of far less importance than the spiritual condition of individuals, for whom the consequences are eternal.

So far so good.

He then goes on to object that, nevertheless, these ends don't justify the means.

And the first of these "means" that James condemns is, of course, Cahn's supposedly faulty hermeneutic:

Cahn has departed from a literal, grammatical historical hermeneutic, in favor of looking for hidden mysteries while engaging in allegorical interpretation and untenable speculation. In short, he has mishandled the Word of God.[THFOF p. 202]

This is, of course, what is going to have to be disputed by anyone who wants to answer David James, and, Lord willing, that's what I intend to try to do.

The fact is that the "literal, grammatical historical hermeneutic" that James has in mind is not EVERYBODY's "literal, grammatical historical hermeneutic" but only the particular hermeneutic of the dispensationalists, although James in his adherence to that theological school is not willing to acknowledge the existence of other schools. Understandably, perhaps, but it has made for quite a bit of unnecessary confusion, for me for one, in dealing with their attacks on the book.

The dispensationalists in dealing with The Harbinger have uniformly presented their own theology as THE only biblical theology, as in this following statement from James:

Although praise of The Harbinger has come from across an extremely broad theological spectrum, the comparatively little criticism the book has rewcweived has been from a relatively small group who share a clear set of mutually held biblical and theological commitments. [THFOF p. 204]

And these shared commitments are in fact the tenets of dispensationalism, though he'd apparently rather give the impression that the shared views are the only or the only right "biblical and theological commitments."

Among those who have serious concerns about The Harbinger and Cahn's views, the common ground they share is not their opposition to the book, but rather a firm commitment to a biblical hermeneutic, as well as the theology and view of the prophetic Scriptures that flow from that. [THFOF p. 204]

In other words, this biblical hermeneutic is THE biblical hermeneutic and there is no other.

He does then go on to acknowledge that many of the book's supporters share the same hermeneutic and theology, although he's almost acknowledged what I have come to think IS the main reason for the division between the book's supporters and its critics, which is the dispensationalism of the critics despite the fact that there are also supporters who share their dispensationalism.

This does require me to account for why dispensationalists themselves also divide on this book. My first, provisional, explanation is that the book's supporters are not adhering rigidly to a formal dispensationalist theology or hermeneutic as the critics are, but rather reading the book in a much more natural way, which would keep them from falling into the utter absurdity of accusing the book of anything remotely along the lines of Replacement Theology for instance. A second, provisional, answer is that the supporters' dispensationalism is of a less extreme kind to begin with. I don't know if this is true and probably can't prove it one way or the other.

David James asks the question what accounts for the differences even among the dispensationalists --or again, as he so tendentiously puts it, among those who have "a firm commitment to a biblical hermeneutic" -- but his answer seems to be the usual dispensationalist assumptions versus those who to his mind DON'T have "a firm commitment to a biblical hermeneutic:"

Those who have opposed The Harbinger tend to uniformly do so on the basis of a number of factors. One major concern is that The Harbinger gives the distinct (and wrong) impression that America has been elevated to a status in God's program that has been reserved for Israel alone. [THFOF pp. 204]

This is pure dispensationalism, which is so rigidly committed to viewing the Old Testament as exclusively to "Israel alone" that even arriving at an application of Old Testament principles to one's own life is brought under suspicion, let alone a nation or anything in the contemporary world, which is treated as a flat-out unquestionable unmitigated failure of proper biblical interpretation. You'd think this method of interpretation was somehow decreed by God Himself the way they talk about it. And he goes on in the same vein:

This impression is deepened, at least in part, due to what is seen as a problem with the hermeneuticl principles used to interpret Isaiah 9:10 (and the Old Testament in general). This has led to further concerns about how passages that were given specifically to Israel have been applied to New testament believers, as well as to the United States, which is a Gentile nation. Ultimately this has resulted in differences between the two sides over the correlation and application of Isaiah 9:10 and other passages to recent events going back to September 2001 and even back to the founding of America. The Harbinger supporters do not seem to share these concerns. [THFOF pp. 205]

That is absolutely correct, we do NOT share those concerns. Those concerns are strictly an artifact of the wrong hermenetic of dispensationalism. The wrong hermeneutic is theirs, not Jonathan Cahn's, even if he thinks himself a dispensationalist, and I don't know how far he goes in that direction.

Dispensationalism is not only simply ONE school of biblical interpretation, it is regarded by some Christians of other theological persuasions as HERESY. At least at certain extremes there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is definitely heresy. Two dispensationalist teachers who are connected with and promoted by Brannon Howse, who has been a major promoter of the criticisms of The Harbinger, do go that far into heretical versions of dispensationalism, Jimmy DeYoung and John Whitcomb, and I've brought up their heretical views on this blog before.

Clearly there is much more that needs to be said about dispensationalism in connection with The Harbinger, which will probably be the subject of posts yet to come as I continue to address David James' critique. I would suggest that if you abandon at least the most extreme dispensationalism, half of the objections to The Harbinger would just go up in smoke. At least half.

More to come.

The Harbinger Critics: The Dispensationalist Connection

Just had a theological/hermeneutical ton of bricks land on my head. As it were.

I've noted before that dispensationalism has been guiding some of the criticism of The Harbinger, but I managed to forget that and focus on the separate arguments. While taking note of its influence to some extent I was hoping to avoid getting into such a thicket of theological controversies.

Now it's hitting me that it is this system of theology, or system of hermeneutics, that is THE basis of the attack on The Harbinger. This came as a depressing realization as I've been grappling with David James' book. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to get into it to some extent, and even a small extent is already far beyond where I wanted to go with such questions.

Why is it there is such a divide among conservative Christians on The Harbinger? James asks that question and I found myself coming to the conclusion that it's somehow because the critics all share a theology, a theology that I don't share and that apparently the average reader doesn't share either. But I wasn't yet understanding just WHAT theology that is.

James, who is very saddened by the disagreements on this book among conservative Christians, also attributes it to theological differences, in his last chapter, but he doesn't name the theologies in question.

It took a while for it to sink in. Ah yes. Dallas Theological Seminary. Ah yes, look at who the critics are. James, DeYoung, Howse, McMahon, Thomas Ice, Roy Zuck.

Dispensationalists. Of course. Why did "Replacement Theology" ever come up at all, and why is it still an issue in some form or other? All that stuff I keep wanting to call stupid and so on, that keeps missing the point of The Harbinger, is dispensationalism.

THAT's the cause of the huge divide. Even though many of the book's defenders are also dispensationalists to one degree or another.

And I'm going to have to deal with all this, like it or not. I've collected some links. My work is cut out for me.

More later.

The Harbinger wars continue

Inevitable I suppose that Howse and DeYoung would answer Joseph Farah. I'm going to agree with them this far, that personal speculations ought to be kept out of such discussions, meaning Farah's speculations about pride and envy as the motivation for Howse and DeYoung's criticisms of The Harbinger, keeping to the theological contentions instead.

Right off the bat Jimmy De Young brings up what is still their central objection to the Harbinger, that

Cahn's fundamental error... is his hermeneutic.

He is quoting from an email sent to his associate David James by Dallas Theological Seminary professor Dr. Roy Zuck, affirming James' criticism which is soon to come out as a book. The email continues, explaining what Dr. Zuck considers to be wrong with Cahn's hermeneutic:

Isaiah 9:10 has nothing to do with the United States. Verses 8 to 11 are all addressed to israel. Having taught hermeneutics for years at Dallas Theological Seminary and havinh written a textook on the subject, I'm greatly bothered to see people like Cahn take a passage totally out of context. These verses don't even apply to the United States. [7:00-8:00]

De Young goes on to say that neither Joseph Farah nor Jonathan Cahn have dealt with this hermeneutical issue, which he and Brannon Howse have been questioning. As a matter of fact Cahn has addressed this allegation about his supposedly faulty hermeneutics many times, and covers it pretty thoroughly in his Response to David James:

D. James claims that The Harbinger departs from a biblical hermeneutic in that Isaiah 9:10 in context concerns Israel, not America. This claim, that he brings up several times in his critique, is based on an underlying confusion – specifically, that the book is claiming that Isaiah 9:10 is a prophecy about America. The problem is The Harbinger does no such thing. It does speak of a connection between America and Israel (not exactly a novel idea) and it does speak of a mystery from the Scriptures which has an amazing application to America. But this is light years removed from claiming that a certain Scripture is prophesying of America.

...Further, the reappearance of such ancient patterns of judgment revealed in a particular Scripture does not in any way affect the original understanding, meaning, or interpretation of that Scripture in its original context - not in any way, shape, or form..

...Further, the book includes quotes from the most respected and classical of Bible commentaries. In The Harbinger, the hermeneutic of Isaiah 9:10 is not taken one inch away from its historical and contextual bearings, nor from its original, proper, and traditionally understood meaning – not an inch, not a millimeter. The critique is groundless – based on an apparent inability to distinguish the realm of Scriptural interpretation from that of Scriptural application. The Harbinger’s hermeneutics remain absolutely sound. [my bolding]

It's been answered again and again: The Harbinger does NOT see America somehow buried in Isaiah 9:10. The Harbinger does nothing more than recognize that God has applied Isaiah 9:10 TO America, as He so often applies His word to us as we read it. In this case He applied it in a way that could make your hair stand on end, but nevertheless it's nothing more than the usual application of scripture outside its original context. The original context REMAINS the original context, God merely making use of it for another purpose, which is STANDARD EVERYDAY BIBLE HERMENEUTICS THAT EVERY BELIEVER EXERCISES WHENEVER WE READ THE BIBLE.

Howse and DeYoung go on to address some side issues that Joseph Farah brought up about DeYoung's end times theology. I've posted on the one allegation Farah mentions that I consider to be a serious error on DeYoung's part, the belief that it's possible to take the Mark of the Beast and then change your mind, but otherwise his dispensational theology isn't the issue in these discussions about The Harbinger. No doubt it explains something about how the criticisms of the book are arrived at, since most of the critics are dispensationalists, but then so are some of the book's defenders.

So I don't want to get more into that part of the discussion because it's mostly highlighting the differences between the theologies of DeYoung and Farah and gets away from the criticism of The Harbinger, but I do have to say it was very funny when De Young finished his lengthy exposition of his own dispensationalist pretrib theology by saying [27:28]

So that is biblical information. I gave no opinion, I gave no interpretation, I simply kept a view to the locations in God's word...

And it's quite true that all he did was refer to various verses of scripture and explain them, but he both chose the verses and explained them completely from within his own interpretive scheme as if there were no other possible way of understanding them, and that IS interpreting them. It was nothing BUT interpretation.

But again, that's a side issue. Then they go on to the issue of Cahn's being interviewed by Glenn Beck, and unfortunately I haven't heard that interview so I can't comment on it. The accusation that Cahn in any way gave the impression that he agrees with Beck's religious views hasn't been demonstrated, but I can't judge it. The idea is that it's OK to appear on a purely secular program because there isn't going to be a religious conflict, but I have to say that by their own standards Brannon's appearing on O'Reilly could be criticized in the same way appearing on Beck could be, since O'Reilly is a Catholic and why wouldn't it look like Brannon was endorsing Catholicism by that appearance? The Catholic God is not the same as the true God either; he's either the Pope or Mary or the wafer since all receive the worship due to God alone.

Then -- glory be! -- It turns out Brannon has finally read the book, or is reading it, so now he brings out some more "concerns" he has based on his reading.

On page 54 [39:47 on the audio counter] he takes issue with The Prophet's asking "Is God not able to speak through such things [meaning a Bible commentary]?" To which Brannon declares, "Dr. DeYoung, the commentaries are not inspired!" Dear Brannon: NEITHER WAS BALAAM'S ASS! Or was she, perhaps, at the moment she spoke? Meaning, God is certainly ABLE to speak through a commentary OR an ass. This is not the same thing as saying that either the commentary or the ass is inspired. Do you really think Cahn is teaching that commentaries are inspired? Do you really think any reader out there is going to get that message from that bit of dialogue? In any case all he means is that a commentary can bring out the true meaning of the scripture, he really doesn't mean any more than that. As usual Brannon and Company are oh so fastidiously straining out gnats.

But it gets worse. It gets positively blockheaded, pun more or less intended as the next complaint is from page 68 [40:00] about the Israelis' vow to rebuild their fallen buildings with hewn stone. "I don't believe that any of the towers that are being rebuilt are being rebuilt with hewn stone, are they, Dr. DeYoung?" No, me bonny lad, they're being built with steel and etc.

Isaiah 9:10 is about the INTENTION of the nation of Israel to rebuild. The intention is what reveals the spirit of defiance as they don't plan to seek God about it, aren't feeling chastened by God's judgment through the Assyrian attack, and aren't anywhere near a repentant spirit. The INTENTION is the point, not the rebuilding itself, and that intention WAS echoed after 9/11 as a twenty-ton block of hewn or quarried stone was brought in to be the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower. Words of defiance meant to express patriotic zeal were spoken over that stone, too, rather than brokenheartedness for the sins that brought about the calamity of 9/11, rather than a call to repentance. And then it turned out they weren't going to use that stone after all so they took it away. Which it seems to me gives the whole thing even MORE of a connection with Isaiah 9:10. God had to have a hewn stone in there whether it was needed or not, so we couldn't miss his clear message that America was defiant of His judgments in exactly the same way Israel was.

Brannon, Dr. DeYoung, with all due respect, maybe, you guys are missing it completely.

Then he takes on the sycamore tree on page 83 [40:45]. "It's a TOTALLY DIFFERENT TREE!" Well, uh, yeah, but they are BOTH called "sycamores" and the American version was named after the Middle Eastern version. Isn't that kind of maybe just a little bit uncanny right there? I mean, the Middle Eastern version simply doesn't grow in America but a tree called a "sycamore" certainly fills the Isaiah 9:10 bill wouldn't you say, considering that God is using it to speak to America and it works beautifully to draw the parallel with Isaiah 9:10? I mean why do we need a lesson in botany to make that connection? It's a "sycamore," the ones in Isaiah 9:10 are "sycamores." They even look similar, growing quite tall with widely spreading branches. How hard do you have to work at missing this simple point anyway?

And of course it's even worse when we get to the "cedars" that in Isaiah 9:10 are the Israelis' choice to replace the downed sycamores. At Ground Zero the sycamore was replaced by a ...a ...a SPRUCE! Hey, that's not a cedar! DeYoung says if it's really from God "it will be fulfilled in absolute detail, not a variance here or there" and Howse adds that Cahn is "stretching things." But this is, as Jonathan Cahn wrote, quoted above, to confuse the exegesis of the passage as it was written to Israel with the application of the passage to the current situation in America. We don't expect such exactness in application, how could we? They seem to be going out of their way to avoid the obvious similarity, which can be simply seen with your own two eyes: conifer trees with needles and cones. And if you do get into botany you'll find that they even belong to the same family, in Hebrew the erez, in Latin the pinaceas or the pine type trees, which include pines, firs, cedars and spruces. Imagine that! Why didn't they replace the sycamore with another sycamore or an oak or some other leafy type tree that grows in that part of the country? Why such a DIFFERENT type tree? Clearly ONLY because it is the same type of tree that was used to replace Israel's sycamores, and who could have made that choice but God Himself?

Really, this should not take all this explanation. The average reader gets it right away, it's the whole point of the book that these harbingers, as Cahn calls them, are such unavoidable pointers back to Isaiah 9:10, which is what God wants us to notice --the attitude of defiance we had about 9/11, the lack of contrition for our sins, the lack of repentance, which was the same attitude described there of Israel. They all point back to Isaiah 9:10. We had the same spirit and God is putting up signposts to to emphasize it by planting all these harbingers, the fallen bricks, the hewn stone, the sycamore, the pine type tree to replace it, all the elements of 9:10. So we'll see that we deserve God's judgment just as Israel did, and that if we don't repent and change our ways we may expect a more devastating judgment just as God brought against ancient Israel. No, He probably won't scatter us throughout the Middle East as He did Israel. Sigh. Really, guys, you do have to be a bit dense to miss this. Or afflicted with some kind of theologically induced myopia. Can't see the forest for ...

Well, I guess at least they did finally address the harbingers themselves. And of course there is no illusion here at all, the harbingers are as uncannily eerily something only God could have brought about as we simple people knew they were from the beginning. The harbingers are the message, all the rest of it is packaging!

There's more but I've got to stop so I'm going to put this much up for now.

Oh brother, and David James' book is going to come out soon and repeat this same kind of nonsense!

Chris Pinto on John Hagee, Extreme Dispensationalism versus Replacement Theology

I just have to keep thanking the Lord for Chris Pinto. I've been struggling through my own understanding of Replacement Theology recently, against arguments from both sides that hit me as wrong in many respects even if right in some respects.

I've been bouncing around in Chris Pinto's long list of radio shows -- sure wish he had a search feature -- hearing whatever happens to grab my attention by its title, and just came across his shows on John Hagee, who is an extreme dispensationalist, quite the opposite of Hank Hanegraaf whose Replacement Theology was the subject of my previous post. They both make the same error, however, not making a distinction between Israel of the flesh and Israel of God.

And here I find Pinto saying clearly and simply what I've been struggling to get into focus and say myself. This has happened recently with other subjects as well: I discover that he's said the same thing I've been saying, but more clearly. And he's corrected me in some areas and strengthened me as well in areas where I've been vacillating and spiritually flabby.

THANK YOU, LORD.

Unbelieving Israel is the enemy of the Church. The idea that Christians should treat them as worthy of our special care because they are Jews is a denial of our Lord and a twisting of the teachings of His apostles, but this is what John Hagee teaches, and to a less extreme extent some other teachers I've heard. Religious Jews are identical to the Pharisees of Jesus' day, and Paul's day. Apparently Hagee misapplies Romans 15:27 to call on the Church to supply the needs of these enemies of Christ, although its true reference is to the BELIEVING Jews of Jerusalem in Paul's day. Our call is to support the people of God, not the enemies of God (although we are of course to show kindness and mercy to all just as God does).

Nevertheless national Israel does fulfill prophecy and on a political level should be defended. This is a completely different level from that of the identity of God's people. God said He would make Jerusalem a "cup of trembling" to the whole world and that is certainly happening as Israel is surrounded by implacable enemies and the war to end all wars appears to be just on the horizon. But "not all Israel is Israel." Out of that war and out of the other sufferings coming on the earth as the end times unfold many Jews will come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

A related subject Pinto touched on in another show I recently heard was the accusation of Martin Luther as an anti-Semite because of his writing, the Lies of the Jews. I haven't written on this in this set of blogs but I have argued it in the past on various message boards. Maybe I'm a coward and avoid it now because of all the hatred that came against me for my arguments before. Luther was no anti-Semite, and was for a long period very generous toward the Jews -- until he found out what they teach against Jesus Christ, especially in the Talmud, the curses they bring against Him, the accusations of His birth to an adulterous woman or a prostitute and other calumnies -- which RIGHTLY offended Luther, although we might take issue with his recommendations for their punishment. It is certainly the reason GOD has punished them and is going to punish them more in the "time of Jacob's trouble." While we aren't to treat them as equal to the Israel of God which is the Church, we also aren't to mistreat them. For us to leave them in their blindness is far from a blessing, we must pray that God will open their eyes to the truth that they may repent and come to Christ and be spared what is coming both in this world and the next. Through Paul we do learn from scripture that God will save many in the end, and the Reformers also taught that.

This post is mostly just to say this much: Thank You, Lord, for Chris Pinto. Please make his work more generally known to the Body of Christ, and protect him and his family and helpers from all the enemies of the truth that are multiplying like rats these days. Amen.

Replacement Theology spelled out

Since I've made some comments on "replacement theology" recently I've been taking notice of the different sides of the controversy somewhat more than I usually do.

It was a comment by Jimmy DeYoung on Brannon Howse's radio show that prompted me to write a post a while back objecting to his statement that animal sacrifices would persist through the reign of Christ during the Millennium, which seems to me to be a radical departure from the revelation of scripture and Christian theology throughout history. I argued that the Old Testament sacrifices all foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ, they all represented atonement for sin which He fulfilled perfectly, and therefore if they are reinstated in Israel it would be a blasphemy. Such a blasphemous reinstatement might occur during the reign of Antichrist but couldn't possibly persist after the return of Christ.

Then I did a post saying that I do not believe that national Israel is God's Chosen People. This argument is more in line with the views of what is called Replacement Theology, but I don't agree with them that this means there is no role left in God's plans for national Israel at all.

Brannon Howse had Jimmy DeYoung on his radio program again today, in which the topic was the presence of Christian Research Journal's Hank Hanegraaf at a basically anti-Israel conference, and Hanegraaf's Replacement Theology was addressed.

I think it may help clarify what Replacement Theology is, and my own position, to present Hanegraaf's point of view and respond to it:

Does the Bible Make a Distinction between Israel and the Church?
Hank Hanegraaff

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:28–292).

At the heart of a currently popular end–times theology is the belief that God has two distinct people—one of whom must be raptured before God can continue His plan with the other.

I also have a problem with this division of God's people into two separate peoples, as I don't see scripture supporting this idea. I haven't yet been completely convinced that the Church will be raptured before the very last days begin, but insofar as I entertain this possibility it is with the idea not that there are separate plans for separate Chosen peoples but that there is nevertheless SOME kind of unfinished business God has with Jacob or national Israel, and certainly there is yet the unfinished business of the redemption of the entire Creation to play out. Jesus is to return to claim the entire world as His own in the end, not just His people. The last days are the Day of the Lord which is described throughout scripture as a time of unparalleled suffering. It is a time when Satan gets to run the show, perhaps without interference from the Church. The only glimpse of comfort I see in this whole scenario is that during the "time of Jacob's trouble" God says "he will be saved out of it." None of this is clear to me and probably won't become clear to anyone until it's under way.

Rather than teaching that God has two categories of people, Scripture reveals only one chosen people who form one covenant community, beautifully symbolized by one cultivated olive tree.

I believe what is called the "wave offering" of two loaves of bread that were ceremonially waved before the Lord in various Old Testament ceremonies prophetically shows the essential unity of BELIEVING Jew and Gentile as two peoples composed of the same spiritual stuff. The two olive trees that give their oil to the lampstand pictured in Zechariah are said in the Book of Revelation to be representative of the two witnesses described there, but they also suggest two sources that combine to make one oil which could represent the Church of both Jew and Gentile. Whether this is the case I don't know for sure (that would suggest Enoch the Gentile and Elijah the Israelite as the two witnesses to my mind since both were taken up into heaven without dying, and both witnesses are going to die as they preach in Jerusalem. I don't think one of the witnesses could be Moses because Moses already died once and can't die a second time.), but the point is that there are images in the Old Testament that picture one out of two, but I don't know of any that argue for two ultimately separate people of God.

Hanegraaf later in this article identifies this tree as described in Romans where Paul says the Gentiles were "grafted in" to the root, or the natural olive tree, which represents the Jews.

First, far from communicating a distinction between Israel and the church, the Scriptures from beginning to end reveal that God has only ever had one chosen people purchased “from every tribe and tongue and language and nation” (Rev. 5:9). As Paul explains, the “mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6, emphasis added). Indeed, the precise terminology used to describe the children of Israel in the Old Testament is ascribed to the church in the New Testament. Peter calls them “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9). Ultimately, they are the one chosen people of God, not by virtue of their genealogical relationship to Abraham, but by virtue of their genuine relationship to “the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God” (1 Pet. 2:4).

Furthermore, just as the Old and New Testaments reveal only one chosen people, so too, they reveal only one covenant community. While that one covenant community is physically rooted in the offspring of Abraham—whose number would be like that of “the stars” of heaven (Gen. 15:5) or “the dust of the earth” (Gen. 13:16)—it is spiritually grounded in one singular Seed. Paul makes this explicit in his letter to the Galatians: “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed’ meaning one person, who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). As Paul goes on to explain: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). The faithful remnant of Old Testament Israel and New Testament Christianity are together the one genuine seed of Abraham and thus heirs according to the promise. This remnant is not chosen on the basis of religion or race but rather on the basis of relationship to the resurrected Redeemer.

Finally, the one chosen people, who form one covenant community, are beautifully symbolized in the book of Romans as one cultivated olive tree (see Rom. 11:11–24). The tree symbolizes Israel; its branches symbolize those who believe; and its root symbolizes Jesus—the root and the offspring of David (Rev. 22:16). Natural branches broken off represent Jews who reject Jesus. Wild branches grafted in represent Gentiles who receive Jesus. Thus says Paul, “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children….In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring” (Rom. 9:6–8). Jesus is the one genuine seed of Abraham! And all clothed in Christ constitute one congruent chosen covenant community connected by the cross.3

This article first appeared in the Ask Hank column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 31, number 1 (2008). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

I agree with all this, except that he concludes that there is no role left for national Israel whereas I don't, and as I understand it neither did the Protestant Reformers who did envision a role for Israel in the end times but without taking away from the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise in the Church.

What makes the difference here is a confusion between national Israel and spiritual Israel, which occurs on both sides of the dispute. There are not two separate CHOSEN peoples, there are not two separate people of God, but there is still Jew and Gentile OF THE FLESH, as-yet-unredeemed people. National Israel is "Jacob" not the Israel of God but the Israel of the flesh, from which nevertheless scripture promises to draw many Jews into the Israel of God in the end times.

The extreme pro-Israel dispensationalists make the mistake of thinking of national Israel as God's chosen people, and the extreme exponents of Replacement Theology apparently make the same mistake. There will nevertheless be many of them saved out of this Great Tribulation which is to come upon the earth.

Does the Bible make a distinction between Israel and the Church: No, not between spiritual Israel and the Church, they are identical, but national Israel is not spiritual Israel.

National Israel is not God's Chosen People

Over the last three days, Chris Pinto has been doing a Bible study in the Letter to the Hebrews in which he clears up some questions I've had about how to view the nation of Israel in relation to the Church. I've never done a thorough study of these issues myself but have picked up bits of the controversies involved over the years from various teachers, which seem to range from the idea that ALL God's promises and prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Israel now belong to the Church, to something close to the opposite extreme, that NONE of it belongs to the Church but all pertain exclusively to national Israel.

As I've thought it through myself I've remained persuaded that God certainly does have plans for national Israel for the last days, though I've never been completely clear which scripture verses apply to this because they are often ambiguous, but I also reject the extreme views that treat the Church as some sort of afterthought rather than the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham, which the New Testament clearly says is the case.

I've come to sort this in terms of the Church as the spiritual fulfillment of the promises and prophecies to Israel, such that we ARE Israel or the New Israel, or the spiritual Israel inheriting the heavenly Jerusalem, which was always the main objective of God's promises that would be realized through the Savior Messiah Jesus Christ, but that physical or fleshly Israel still inherits something from God. I'm not sure to what extent Chris Pinto would see it this way, but it still makes sense to me. He did point me to Ezekiel 36 as a scriptural reference for God's plans for earthly Israel as opposed to the Church, which helps me anchor all this better than I'd been able to before. I've copied out some of that passage below, where it seems pretty clear that attempts to make it apply to the Church are strained to say the least.

Those who apply most of the Old Testament to physical Israel at the expense of the Church are known as Dispensationalists, which is such a theological quagmire to me that I tend to try to avoid it, a theology which is held in varying degrees by different teachers, apportioning scripture more or less to the Church versus the state of Israel. I know I can't accept the full Reformed point of view, which treats Dispensationalism as a complete heresy and applies ALL the scripture to the Church instead, because I do believe scripture points to an end-times role for national Israel, and that we can see this already fulfilled in its becoming a state as of May 14, 1948, and it now seems to me, thanks to Chris Pinto's recent Bible studies, that Ezekiel 36 is the best description of this.

Dispensationalists are the ones who complain so loudly against "replacement theology" which puts the Church in the place of Israel to such an extent that no place is left for the prophecies concerning the literal land God gave to the Jews or the literal return of Christ to the Mount of Olives either, or other events prophesied in the Book of Revelation. And I agree with them that far, but even the best of them tend to go too far beyond that.

The main form this seems to take is in celebrating the State of Israel in its present apostate condition as if it were God's own people. They confuse physical Israel with spiritual Israel. They also call the Jews "God's Chosen People." They also tend to go into raptures over every event that shows Israel preparing to resume its Old Testament form, such as the plans that have been underway for years for the rebuilding of the Temple and the reinstatement of the animal sacrifices, or the search for a perfect Red Heifer, and the like. While these plans do point toward a likely reinstatement of the Old Testament religion, and there is scripture that supports such a reinstatement, after the Messiah has come there's something very wrong with Christians cheering them on.

The Lord Jesus was the Reality that ALL those Old Testament institutions and practices were intended to point to. He has come. There is no way any of that can be reinstated without being an offense to God. Yes, they may well be reinstated in fulfillment of prophecy, but Christians who applaud these developments, who rationalize them as simply a "different" way God has of dealing with Israel as opposed to the Church, who make Israel out to be a separate "dispensation" in God's plans from the Church, have to deny all the clear statements in the New Testament that Jesus Christ IS their fulfillment. I already said all this in my previous post about the animal sacrifices, about John Whitcomb's assertion on Brannon Howse's radio program that the animal sacrifices would continue although Christ Himself reigns from Jerusalem. Cannot be. They may be reinstated during the reign of the Antichrist but they couldn't possibly continue through the reign of Christ.

What I've not quite allowed myself to say in so many words is: Physical Israel is NOT "God's people" any more, the Church is God's people, and the Church is both Jew and Gentile, there is not one dispensation for Jews and one for Gentiles. Of course the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles were all Jewish and it may well be that God will also put other Jewish believers in special roles in the Church, I think there may be scripture to that effect, but they are still The Church and not a separate dispensation. The New Testament makes it clear that the Church is now God's "Elect" and only some fancy twisting of words can make that mean anything other than "Chosen" as if one people were the elect and another the chosen.

This is NOT "Replacement Theology." God still has plans for Israel because God still has plans for the world, to show forth His glory, to redeem not only His Elect but the whole Creation and shame the heathen and the devils who have been ruling this wrecked planet since the Fall. This is to be the finale of the grand drama that began back at the Creation, and He is bringing back His apostate people Israel for the final Act in which first all Hell and then all Glory will break loose.

They ARE apostate, they are NOT the Chosen People any more, though some of them WILL be. The Church is the Chosen People. But many of them WILL yet join us according to scripture, many many of them, as the Day of the Lord, or the times of the heathen, or the times of the Antichrist, unfolds.

It's one thing to watch with interest -- or bated breath with perhaps a little horror thrown in -- prophecy being fulfilled in the plans to reinstate the Old Testament religion, and other to celebrate it as if God could be happy with it. The Dispensationalists who celebrate it are whitewashing sepulchres full of dead men's bones. Orthodox Judaism today is the very same religion of the Pharisees that Christ denounced in His day. Spend any time talking to an Orthodox Jew about his beliefs and you will soon find out that it is the identical belief system, in which the traditions of men through the Talmud eclipse scripture. They still strain a gnat out of their soup lest they eat unclean meat unawares. I could probably write a very long post just on this subject because of conversations I had over many years with an Orthodox Jew. Orthodox Judaism is the aggressive denial of Christ. It was in His day and it still is.

Of course Israel is not just orthodox Judaism but atheism and paganism and devil worship and the sort of stuff to which all the nations of this world are in bondage. The devil's work.

Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies [shall lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

Earthly Jerusalem is not the Holy City and earthly Israel is not God's people. As Paul said, "not all Israel is Israel." But some are and will be revealed in God's own time.

Although I believe this, believe we can't treat Israel as on a par with the Church, mustn't celebrate the reinstatement of the institutional and ceremonial types and shadows which have been fulfilled in Christ, I nevertheless believe we must support Israel for the sake of prophecy and in my opinion also because they are politically and historically in the right and surrounded by devil-driven enemies who are still seeking to overthrow God's rule on this planet. Jesus is to return to earthly Israel. His feet will split the Mount of Olives when He comes. Then it may be that there will be a Millennium as the dispensationalists believe, in which He will reign literally over the entire earth from Jerusalem. That would conclude the drama of Planet Earth in seven millennia which is a very nice number.

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Ezekiel 36:16-38 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman. Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols [wherewith] they had polluted it: And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These [are] the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.

Eze 36:21 But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not [this] for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

Eze 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do [them].

Eze 36:28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that [were] not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

Eze 36:32 Not for your sakes do I [this], saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause [you] to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities [are become] fenced, [and] are inhabited.

36:36 Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined [places, and] plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken [it], and I will do [it]. Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet [for] this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do [it] for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.