The Church does inherit many of the promises to Israel but God still has a plan for Israel

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, when I was still a new Christian, all I ever heard was the pro-Israel or Christian Zionist point of view. I heard it in Church and in Bible Study and in parachurch organizations and in the popular books of the day.

At first it was exciting to hear about fulfilled prophecy, but eventually it started to bother me as it seemed to relegate the Church to some sort of afterthought of God's while supposedly His main concern was always the nation of Israel. The Church just sort of interrupted His plan but after "The Church Age" is over we are to expect that He would resume His dealings with Israel.

 I'd done a lot of reading on my way to Christian belief and always found that the Church was the whole point of redemptive history, not some afterthought.  So this emphasis on Israel was starting to get to me. Since then the Reformed churches have become more influential and now the Christian Zionists complain that we're making Israel irrelevant, and call the theology that I'd always regarded as orthodox traditional theology by the pejorative term Replacement Theology.

Jan Markell sent along another piece on the subject of Israel, this one objecting strenuously to "Replacement Theology" as the devil's work within the Church against Israel, "Christian" Palestinianism: More Lies From the Pit of Hell by Geri Ungarean for the website Rapture Ready.

I wrote an article on Replacement Theology not too long ago. The main proponents of this lie from the pit are the main stream denominations - Presbyterian Church USA, Lutheran, Methodist and some Baptist churches, among others. The Catholic Church has been teaching RT since its inception...

We can see the finger prints of Satan in every church who is turning its back on God’s Holy Word. There is a new outcry from the pulpits of the PC crowd.

They yell, “Free Palestine! Israel is occupying land which is not theirs! Israel is an apartheid state! Down with Israel! Boycott products made in Israel!” They compare Israel with Hitler’s SS. To them, Israel is the oppressor, and are occupiers of their own land.

I agree with her that such accusations of Israel are very wrong, as I just wrote in a previous post, and it's fair to call it the work of Satan too, but I disagree that any of this has to do with theology. Apparently some kind of theological excuse for denouncing Israel is made in those pulpits, but it's hard to see how they could use Replacement Theology for that purpose;  probably it's more along the lines of the typical liberal misuse of the teachings about love and kindness and the denial of the right to self-defense, such as were directed against Israel in the film I discussed in the previous post.

Again, what does Replacement Theology have to do with whether or not Israel is at fault as they claim?

Interestingly most of the churches Ms. Ungarean lists are known as liberal churches, but what she calls "Replacement Theology" is taught in conservative churches as well, particularly Reformed or Calvinist churches.

I've never wanted to get very deep into this controversy, but every time it comes up and I post something on it I am forced to learn a little bit more about it.   I don't enjoy it, the disputes can be rancorous.   I recently listened to some dispensationalist arguments against Replacement Theology at Sermon Audio but I'll never be able to learn enough to have more than a broad grasp of the issues.

They often start off saying something like "Replacement Theology is the belief that God is finished with Israel, that He cast them off for their sins and particularly their rejection of the Messiah, so now the promises He gave to Israel all belong to the Church."  Then if their focus is on Covenant Theology, the theology of the Reformed or Calvinist churches, they'll go on to characterize Replacement Theology as related to Amillennialism and the allegorizing of scripture. 

None of this addresses any of my own concerns.  I strenuously oppose Amillennialism, have never seen any reasonable excuse for allegorizing anything in scripture, don't believe that God has completely cast off Israel, and I continue to appreciate the insistence of the Dispensationalists on the literal interpretation of numbers in scripture (if it says "a thousand years" it means a thousand years and not just "a long time" and so on.)  

And yet I do think that many of the Old Testament references to Israel refer to the Church.  I think this because I think this is what the New Testament says.

Geri Ungurean continues:

Another NEWSFLASH: God Himself is a Zionist.

“For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. ‘This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her needy with bread.

Her priests also I will clothe with salvation, and her godly ones will sing aloud for joy. There I will cause the horn of David to spring forth; I have prepared a lamp for Mine anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon himself his crown shall shine’” (Psalm 132:13-18).

Such a flat statement applying this passage to ethnic Israel is simply not true. The New Testament refers to Zion in spiritual terms as the heavenly Jerusalem, and specifically not a something of the senses that could be touched:

Heb 12:18  For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest...,   Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

This is the dwelling place of the living God, not earthly Zion. He dwells in His people as the New Testament says, not in buildings made of stone or on earthly mountains. And what could the "horn of David" refer to but the Messiah?

Here's what Matthew Henry says:

Here will I dwell, for here he adhered to his principle, It is good for me to be near to God. Zion must be here looked upon as a type of the gospel-church, which is called Mount Zion (Heb. 12:22), and in it what is here said of Zion has its full accomplishment. Zion was long since ploughed as a field, but the church of Christ is the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15), and it is his rest for ever, and shall be blessed with his presence always, even to the end of the world. The delight God takes in his church, and the continuance of his presence with his church, are the comfort and joy of all its members.

Ms. Ungurean's article continues with more analysis of Political Correctness in the churches and Christian Palestinianism, and I agree with her in general about the errors there, but my interest is more in the meaning of Replacement Theology.

As I say above I believe that the New Testament requires us to interpret many of the references to Israel, Zion, and other terms in the Old Testament, as applying to the Church because they all point toward the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption in a heavenly and not an earthly Jerusalem. There is a general complaint by the Dispensationalists that we "spiritualize" the Old Testament references to Israel, but in fact it's the New Testament itself that spiritualizes them.

The New Testament also clarifies that Abraham himself was not looking to earthly Israel as the promised land but to a better country, that is, a heavenly promised land:

Hebrews 11: 9  By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10  For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God...
13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  14  For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.15  And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. 16  But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

Paul in Galatians 6:16 refers to "the Israel of God" in a context that clearly defines it as referring to the Church, to believers in the Messiah:

Gal 6:14-16  But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.  15  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.   16  And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Although this passage is often disputed it seems to me that the Israel of God can only be believers, certainly not unbelievers, and if it's believing Jews then they are part of the Church just as believing Gentiles are, and they can't therefore be a different group from those who "walk according to this rule" and that includes all believers, both Jew and Gentile.

Then another distinction is made between ethnic Jews and believing Jews, further "spiritualizing" terms that are earthly or fleshly in the Old Testament, including circumcision:

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:

There are also all those New Testament passages that show the Church to be God's chosen people:

Eph 1 4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

2 Thess 2:13  But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:

James 2 5  Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Concerning the covenant with Abraham the New Testament is clear that all who live by faith in Christ are inheritors of that covenant, though it could possibly also be said that as long as this earth exists the land of Canaan was clearly given to the physical descendants of Abraham. The only problem there is that it is an everlasting covenant and we know from other scripture that this earth is passing away, and the "everlasting" covenant could therefore only be the spiritual covenant, the covenant with the Church.

Here's Matthew Henry again:

GENESIS 17:6-7 Here is, I. The continuance of the covenant, intimated in three things:-1. It is established; not to be altered nor revoked. It is fixed, it is ratified, it is made as firm as the divine power and truth can make it. 2. It is entailed; it is a covenant, not with Abraham only (then it would die with him), but with his seed after him, not only his seed after the flesh, but his spiritual seed. 3. It is everlasting in the evangelical sense and meaning of it. The covenant of grace is everlasting. It is from everlasting in the counsels of it, and to everlasting in the consequences of it; and the external administration of it is transmitted with the seal of it to the seed of believers, and the internal administration of it by the Spirit of Christ's seed in every age. II. The contents of the covenant: it is a covenant of promises, exceedingly great and precious promises. Here are two which indeed are all-sufficient:-1. That God would be their God, v. 7, 8. All the privileges of the covenant, all its joys and all its hopes, are summed up in this. A man needs desire no more than this to make him happy. What God is himself, that he will be to his people: his wisdom theirs, to guide and counsel them; his power theirs, to protect and support them; his goodness theirs, to supply and comfort them. What faithful worshippers can expect from the God they serve believers shall find in God as theirs. This is enough, yet not all.

2. That Canaan should be their everlasting possession, v. 8. God had before promised this land to Abraham and his seed, ch. 15:18. But here, where it is promised for an everlasting possession, surely it must be looked upon as a type of heaven's happiness, that everlasting rest which remains for the people of God, Heb. 4:9. This is that better country to which Abraham had an eye, and the grant of which was that which answered to the vast extent and compass of that promise, that God would be to them a God; so that, if God had not prepared and designed this, he would have been ashamed to be called their God, Heb. 11:16. As the land of Canaan was secured to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, so heaven is secured to all his spiritual seed, by a covenant, and for a possession, truly everlasting. The offer of this eternal life is made in the word, and confirmed by the sacraments, to all that are under the external administration of the covenant; and the earnest of it is given to all believers, Eph. 1:14. Canaan is here said to be the land wherein Abraham was a stranger; and the heavenly Canaan is a land to which we are strangers, for it does not yet appear what we shall be.

In all of this there is no necessary idea that God is completely through with Israel and I don't see anything in scripture that says so. There are passages that speak of their failure to uphold their end of the covenant but there are passages that promise that He won't abandon them completely anyway, and how much of that refers to the Church I really don't know. We know from Romans 9 through 11 that He plans to save "all Israel" in the end and that definitely refers to earthly Israel. That to my mind is enough to give earthly Israel a place in God's plan. and I can't ignore the fact that their defeat of the Arab states who attacked them was nothing short of miraculous. This is all based on history and not scripture but nothing happens without God, the state of Israel couldn't be there at all if God weren't superintending the whole thing, and again their defeat of their enemies shows to my mind God's hand in their affairs. God isn't finished with Israel and He isn't finished with Planet Earth. Although the heritage of the Church is spiritual, and that includes believing Jews as well as Gentiles, a transformed body, a transformed life, God began His work with earthly people on an earthly planet and there's no reason to think He would not bring that work to a fitting finish, and for that earthly Israel has to play a gigantic role.

HOW it all is to happen I haven't sorted out in my mind.

The idea of "Replacement Theology" is false and does not serve the cause of gaining support for the nation of Israel

Is it true that a crucial failure of today's Church is not to be supporting the nation of Israel according to its importance in prophecy? Are we really inviting God's judgment on the Church and the nation for this failure?

I really don't think so. Correction: I don't know but I think the west is under judgment predominantly for lots of other offenses, and I'm less and less convinced of the arguments that put Israel at the center of prophecy. But I've also got to say that there could be some truth to it, but the case has not been made for it if so. Those who promote this idea are guilty of slanderous and divisive attitudes and a failure to put their views into a reasonable perspective so that reasonable people might be persuaded. Right now I don't think their perspective is reasonable.

I'm all for supporting Israel, I think it would be a disaster if we stopped, I think all the pro-Palestinian politics, in the government but also the churches, is as wrongheaded as it's possible to be, backing the wolf against the lamb as usual, utterly ignoring the stated objectives of Palestinian policies to destroy Israel. They don't want a State, they could have had one years ago if that was their objective, but it isn't, and they could have had a lot of help from Israel in developing it too. But they want Israel gone, period. And they've said so many times. And the blindness it takes to ignore all that is almost miraculous. Well, that's not a bad description really; it's certainly a spiritual condition in the end. So yes, I think God could bring us under judgment for failing to support Israel but not necessarily because prophecy requires it, just because it would be wrong.

But then I hear all this theological stuff about "Replacement Theology" which is supposed to explain why the liberal/left churches are pro-Palestine, and that doesn't sit well with me either. All you have to be to support Palestine over Israel is a Politically Correct Leftist who is ideologically committed to what they perceive to be the underdog without regard to how the underdog got into that condition. Which in this case is thanks to their Muslim leaders who want to keep them underdogs to get sympathy from the world and make Israel look bad. The fact that Israel has made itself a prosperous and successful nation is the Great No-No from the leftist point of view, and their success alone makes them the guilty party. This is so obvious it takes extraordinarily perverse thinking to overlook it. But the Left is wonderfully adept at that kind of thinking so what else is new?

I do suppose there must be some theological influence in the position of the leftist churches, but I also have to suspect it's more windowdressing than real motivation. The idea is that the Church has replaced Israel in God's promises and prophecies, but it makes no sense to abandon Israel even if the Church HAD replaced them in theological terms. What does that have to do with the political realities of the situation brought about by the deceitful policies of the Palestinian leaders? Replacement Theology is as nutty an explanation for taking the Palestinian side against Israel as the Leftist lies themselves.

Unfortunately the Right doesn't seem to think so; the main message we hear from the pro-Israel camp is that Replacement Theology is causing the churches to deny the importance of Israel in prophecy, to ignore for instance the immense significance of Israel's gaining of statehood back in 1948. It seems to me that their becoming a nation does have to be understood as fulfilled prophecy, and it's also hard to overlook the times when Israel defeated their enemies by what can only be considered God's hand; but I'd need to see a more rational exposition how it fits into prophecy than what we get from the Christian Right these days. What we're getting is a view of scripture that treats the opposing theology, which they dub Replacement Theology, as little short of anti-Semitic.

Again, as I say above, it is hard to see how anyone could rationally use such a theology to defend a political position that is inherently stupid; the real explanation has to be that the churches that support Palestine have simply been infected with leftist political correctness.

In my context here this is really a side issue, though it needed to be said. Once again the problem for me is the very idea of Replacement Theology itself, which strikes me as just plain bogus. There is no such thing, as I've said many times before. This is really just a slander of the Reformed tradition or Covenant Theology, which has the traditional view that the Church is the inheritor of the promises of God to Israel, and the Church is both Jew and Gentile.

The concept of Replacement Theology is offensive and slanderous.* It utterly misrepresents the theology it is labeling and it accuses innocent people of anti-Semitism in the process.

Again the provocation for my post on this subject comes from Jan Markell's ministry, Understanding the Times Radio, this time from her interview of Dr. David Reagan who recently wrote a book titled The Jewish People, Rejected or Beloved, in which he analyzes current issues with Israel in terms of Replacement Theology. Jan Markell has a lot of great topics that the Church does need to be aware of, but her commitment to this particular point of view is way off base and I wish she'd come to see that. Some time ago I did a post on her interview with Messianic Jewish guests Shelly and Scott Volk, which promotes the same offensive point of view that is being repeated in her interview with David Reagan.

I don't want to be offended by the "Christian Zionist" people, and certainly not by the Jewish Messianic Branch of the Church, I wish this problem would go away, but it isn't going away so I'm giving my view of it. I'm coming to think there is a trend there that amounts to modern-day Judaizing.

Anyway, to get to the interview with David Reagan:

Jan starts off stating that it seems the great prophetic importance of the situation of the State of Israel is being ignored by the majority of the churches, and that this has to do with their having embraced a wrong understanding of scripture. "The Church is silent" on these things, she says, "Instead they hear that the Church is the New Israel."

She could be right, as she says a bit later, that there has been a sea change in the attitude of the churches toward Israel in recent times, from a previous strong commitment to Israel, to strong criticism of Christian Zionism or the Church's defense of Israel. She lists a number of people who represent this point of view but I haven't studied them and wouldn't trust what I get from Wikipedia on them to be sure of what they stand for, so I'm not going to comment. Do they really hold a position that could rightly be called Replacement Theology or is this just the usual misrepresentation of the traditional Reformed theology that says the Church was always God's objective and that believing Israel was always the early form of the Church? I don't know, but I suspect the latter because of the attitudes I encounter among the "Christian Zionists." Just as a matter of fact I'm sure she's right that there has been such a change but what it's really about I'm not in a position to judge at this point. Again, I'm sorry to see Israel abandoned politically when politically they are not the villains in the drama.

"How do we wake up the churches?" Jan asks Reagan, who answers: "I'd do it from scripture because the scripture is very very clear that God has not washed His hands of the Jewish people, all people have to do is start reading Romans nine through eleven." OK, that's clear so far. He goes on: "Those three chapters are the most neglected chapters in Christian history because the Church has hated them with a passion because they teach that God still loves the Jewish people."

But that last statement is pure slander. What churches "neglect" those chapters in Romans? None that I know of. Let alone for the even more offensively slanderous reason that "the Church" has "hated" the Jews "with a passion because they teach that God still loves the Jewish people." This is just unbelievably slanderous and offensive. For one thing it makes no sense. Here he needs to document his accusations: WHICH Church, and quote them please. When he goes on with "He still has a purpose for the Jewish people and He's going to bring a great remnant of them to salvation when they place their faith in Jesus as their Messiah" there is nothing to object to, except the implication that there is any theologian who disputes this. If there is we need to be given the evidence.

He goes on "accounting for" this supposed hatred of the Jews in the Church:

This is something that is deeply rooted in Christianity. You take for example the King James Version of the Bible ...If you go back to the original and look in the Old Testament you will find many chapter headings that read like "God Makes Promises to the Church" and you read that whole chapter there's nothing in there about the Church, they are promises to Israel, but the translators were caught up in Replacement Theology, and they put that mentality into the scriptures in the Chapter Headings.

I have a hard time hearing The King James Bible knocked, which seems to be a favorite pastime of many people in the churches for many reasons these days. I'm afraid this angle on it is particularly offensive, because if there's one thing that's true of the King James scholars it's that they knew their Reformed Theology. They weren't "caught up in" what is here pejoratively and tendentiously being called "Replacement Theology," they knew that God's people Israel were the foundation or root of the Church, which He was building through the Jewish remnant of believers, that would be fulfilled in the coming of their Messiah when all who have faith in Him become grafted in to that Jewish root.

Reagan goes on with his prejudiced and false history of the Church:

This goes back really to the very beginning of the Church. As soon as the Church began to become more Gentile than Jewish the Gentiles turned on the Jews, and then Augustine systematized all this around 400 AD when he simply began to argue, as did others following him, that God had washed His hands of the Jews because the Jews were Christ killers, and they were labeled that over the ages and people were actually taught in the Church that they were to hate Jews, that they were to despise Jews, that they were to mistreat Jews.

Telling it like it is, this is a pernicious lie, in fact it is about three pernicious lies in one, one of which I dealt with in my post about the Volks, but I'll say more about all this after I've finished quoting Reagan.

And one thing we need to get straight about who killed Jesus. The Bible says there were more than the Jews involved in this. The Bible says point blank [sic] that it was the Jews, it was the Gentiles, it was the Romans, and you know who else it was? It was you and me. All of us have the blood of Jesus on our hands because he went to the cross and died for all of us.

And this is a pernicious half-truth which I also answered in that other post.

To try to be as fair as possible, first I'd say that it would help if both sides in this polarized conflict gave a bit here and there. Those who completely dismiss Israel as rejected by God --if there are any, and I'm not completely convinced of this yet because no evidence has been given for it -- need to see that Romans 9 through 11 says that's not the case; they also need to consider that perhaps SOME of the Old Testament prophecies don't apply to the Church but to earthly Israel, or perhaps even to both. They might also learn from the Reformers who didn't dismiss the Jews from God's plan.

But the other side really does have to give on a number of points. They need first to acknowledge that the covenant with Abraham is a covenant of faith that is now the heritage of the Church. If there is an argument that it ALSO applies to earthly Israel, then make that argument, but to deny that Christians are the legitimate heirs of Abraham isn't going to gain them any credibility.

It would also help a great deal if they'd acknowledge that most of the Old Testament references to Israel DO apply to the Church, instead of holding on to their dogged literalist view that they can only apply to earthly Israel. It has seemed to me for some time that some of the passages could very well apply to earthly Israel but there is simply no doubt that most of them look forward to the Church in the time of the Messiah, and ignoring this doesn't do the Zionist cause any good. After all, what was Israel meant to be but the People of God, and what is the Church but the People of God established by faith in the Jewish Messiah?

Instead of bullishly insisting that the Church has been wrong all these years about the Church in the Old Testament, show us that there are at least a few places where earthly Israel is meant or also meant. I would think that could be the case, and it may even have been spelled out by some theologians that I don't know about. But first give up this wrongheaded notion that it's wrong to apply the references to Israel to the Church, which they call Replacement Theology. Which it isn't. It's Continuation Theology if anything, or even Fulfillment Theology: it's what was always intended by God's establishment of Israel as His People: a body of Believers! Unbelieving Jews are NOT true Israel, EVEN IF God still has His hand on them and has plans for them to become believers. Before we're saved we're all "children of wrath," remember?

If you want people to support Israel, stop insisting on your end times theology and focus on the practical situation of Israel; that and the clear message of Romans nine to eleven, which doesn't have to be embedded in a nest of slanderous accusations, ought to be enough to rally support.

Also consider that the traditional Church is not the rabid Jew-hating institution they sometimes make it out to be --excepting of course Roman Catholicism because they promoted the pogroms and all kinds of violence against Jews and others, and had a big part in the Holocaust too. It's irresponsible to impute attitudes to "the Church" without being clear which "Church" you are referring to, and without quoting anyone to prove your point.

The claim that Augustine promoted hatred of the Jews turns out to be just plain wrong. I looked up his views and found a recent book on the subject that says he made a case for the continued existence of the Jews as a recognizable body as witnesses to Christ, and strongly defended the understanding that God would bring the Jews to faith at the end. He said nothing whatever to promote anti-Semitism, with which he is absurdly and falsely charged. The early church fathers, of which Augustine was one of the most prolific writers, devoted themselves to theological arguments about doctrine, and Augustine was one who took apart Judaism, no doubt in pretty insulting terms, but it would be ridiculous to confuse a doctrinal argument with a hatred of the people who hold that doctrine. Arianism was also dissected by the church fathers, and all the other heresies, without any hint of hatred toward the people holding those views.

If later ignorant people used such intellectual work to support their anti-Semitism, that can't be blamed on Augustine.

Another thing that's wrong in their thinking is the apparently entrenched idea that when the Church started to be called Christians at Antioch, that marked a switch from the Jewish- dominated Church to a Gentile-dominated Church that supposedly unleashed hatred of the Jews. There isn't the slightest reason to believe this, and I pointed this out in the post about the Volks that I've linked above. I also quote Matthew Henry's understanding of that event as the point where ethnic identities should have been melted into the Christian identity, "no more Jew nor Gentile but all one in Christ Jesus." And historically that is probably what happened. Instead today we find modern-day Jewish believers falsely making it a cause for accusing the Gentiles of anti-Semitism and promoting the very division in the Church that event should have ended.

=======================
*Here's Replacement Theology Dot Org a website I just found that's dedicated to explaining what is wrong with the concept of Replacement Theology:

What is Replacement Theology? It is a pejorative term used by a growing number of misinformed Christians who unwittingly misrepresent the views of fellow believers. The purpose of this web site is to encourage Christians to cease using this unkind term, for it is theologically inaccurate, divisive, incendiary to honest Christian discourse, and overtly offensive.

...“Replacement Theology” is often used to discredit Reformed or Covenant theologians by ascribing to them a view that they do not hold. When carelessly repeated, the phrase “Replacement Theology” propagates this flawed definition. Furthermore, it drives a wedge between fellow Christians. Damage to the unity of the body of Christ occurs when well-meaning, but misinformed people haphazardly employ the term. It is often done to advance their own theological theory of biblical or end-times interpretation.

Some Warnings Against the Bogus Bibles, Against the Bogus "health care plan," and Against the Bogus "Palestinian cause" plus Update on Jesuits

11/20 UPDATE:

Chris Pinto's radio show today is about Jesuit influence, particularly in Scotland. He quotes from J A Wylie's book on the history of Protestantism (It's listed at my Catholicism blog).   In passing he mentions a book about Vatican influence in Nazi Germany.  The book is available but so is this video Interview with John Cornwell about his book, Hitler's Pope.

=============================

THE GREAT BIBLE HOAX:

After writing yesterday's post for the Bible Hoax blog I went back and listened again to Chris Pinto's radio show The Burning of the Bibles, which I'd linked in the previous post at that blog, because I remembered that it gives support to some of the claims I was making about Westcott and Hort's Bible revision of 1881.  It does, and it's an excellent outline of the whole Bible debacle that was hatched in the 19th century and has been creating chaos ever since, causing the English Bible to be brought into doubt.  Yes we're talking conspiracy.  The revision of 1881 was more of an attempt to destroy the King James Bible by people under the influence of the Vatican than it was any kind of legitimate revision.  This is what Chris Pinto has been repeatedly documenting for some time, and this particular radio show does a very nice job of outlining the whole story.

I started that blog based on the writings of John Burgon, a contemporary of Westcott and Hort's who saw their revision as an indefensible undermining of the Bible, which he called "poisoning the river of life," and wrote a series of critiques of the revision that became the monumental book The Revision Revised.   Although Burgon's name has been used by a King-James-Only organization, The Dean Burgon Society,  Burgon did not give King-James-Only arguments.  His effort was entirely to show the scholarly deficiencies of the 1881 revision, both in their substitution of corrupted Greek manuscripts for those underlying the King James, and in their mangling of the English translation itself by thousands of unnecessary changes, both against the instructions that had been given to the revising committee. 

What Chris Pinto does is show that there were very likely ulterior motives to their mutilation of the King James Bible, specifically in the use of the corrupted Greek manuscripts, and that these motives were most likely fostered under the influence of the Vatican.  The Vatican of course had, and still has, strong motives to bring down the Reformation, which had deposed it from its former power in Europe, of which the King James Bible was the crown jewel.

This particular radio show was inspired by an incident in which Catholic priests in America burned the King James Bible in the year 1834, as reported by the Protestant writer John Dowling, but Pinto doesn't get to that incident until late in the show because he gets sidetracked by the fact that the criticisms of the King James used by Catholic apologists as reported by Dowling are the same as those unwittingly given by supposedly Protestant Bible textual critics today.

The title of Dowling's book is The Burning of the Bibles:  Defense of the Protestant Version of the Scriptures Against the Attacks of Popish Apologists for the Champlain Bible Burners,  and Pinto says that the arguments Dowling describes as those of the Catholic apologists for the burning of the Bibles

...are arguments that are nearly identical to your textual critics in modern times, who don't realize that many of their arguments come from the Roman Catholic Church ...  even though these guys are professing Protestant evangelical, sometimes neo-Reformed...  the arguments they make about the Bible and its history...come from Roman Catholic apologists, and Jesuits and rationalists...who have made these arguments for hundreds of years.  And of course I believe that because Higher Criticism gained the upper hand in the 19th century, largely as a result of events surrounding the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus, and because of the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus, this is what led to the full-blown exploitation of unbelieving Higher Criticism in our colleges and universities...  and as a direct result of the Higher Critical arguments gaining the upper hand, what immediately happened after was the beginning of modern-day ecumenism...

This gets him into a discussion of how the revising committee of 1881 introduced the corrupted Greek manuscripts, but especially how their arguments came to dominate today's Bible scholarship. He says we have to understand that

...Westcott, Hort, Scrivener, all of these guys, were Anglo-Catholics... That's why they invited Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was the leader of the Oxford Movement, to come and sit on the committee with them.... Cardinal Newman, his entire purpose was to reclaim England for Rome.

The plot goes on thickening from there, through the work of Phillip Schaff who did the American version of the English revision, how Schaff kissed the feet of the Pope and how he was a keynote speaker at the ecumenical Parliament of World Religions of 1893 which included Buddhists and the satanic Theosophists Blavatsky and Annie Besant among the bogus "Christians" and so on and so forth. This is all within the first six minutes of the radio show, and it goes on from there until he finally gets back to Dowling's book in the middle of the second half of the show.   Listen and weep.  That's what happens to me when I hear this stuff.

What can I say.  I pray and hope that Chris Pinto's work might change the minds of some of those Protestant Christian spokesmen today who are committed to the modern Bible versions.  I pray for James White and Daniel Wallace and John MacArthur who are very influential Reformed Christian leaders who are unwittingly supporting these Vatican-inspired Bibles that are contributing to the destruction of Protestant Christendom.  Why?  Because they have put their trust in Bible scholars, some of whom were unbelievers, such as Bruce Metzger, and Jesuits.  If there is a lesson here from the Bible itself, it must be the many warnings to us to avoid the "wisdom of this world."  It's just another of the devil's strongholds we are to bring down through the spiritual weapons we have been given in the Word itself.

=============================
So I wanted to point back to that radio show today, hoping hoping hoping my voice joined with Chris Pinto's and others who are saying the same things might help turn the tide against the Antichrist Vatican's plots -- if it might by God's providence reach some open ears.

But Protestant Christendom is so far gone these days, so completely under God's judgment, so mutilated and dying, I wonder how much hope is there that the Lord might have mercy on us at this late hour.

There are so many fronts on which we need that mercy these days, the Bible versions are just one of them. 

=============================

THE PLANNED OBAMACARE TRAIN WRECK

I just heard a radio show Jan Markell hosted on Saturday, on two separate topics, Obamacare and Israel that constitute two such fronts, that was something like being punched twice in the stomach:  one, the second, was on The Planned Train Wreck of Obamacare, which suggests that this was never a legitimate health care plan, which many of us knew anyway, but a designed attack on American capitalism.

There's a whole lot that needs to be said about how capitalism is a specifically PROTESTANT system, that brought about the unprecedented prosperity of Protestant America, and how socialism is the economic system of the Vatican, whose work can be seen in the miserable poverty of Catholic nations.  This wasn't part of Jan Markell's show, but it's necessary background.  All this stuff was new to me over the last year, and I've hardly even touched on it in my blogs.  All I'm going to do here is say this much and hope others who are still in the dark about these things, as I was, will do the research.  I've listed many sources on such things at my Catholicism blog.  Check out the book Ecclesiastical Megalomania, which is available at The Trinity Foundation for some eye-opening revelations about Catholic economics.

THE EVANGELICAL POLITICAL ABANDONMENT OF ISRAEL

The second punch in the stomach from Jan Markell's weekend radio show was on the fact that the growth of Reformed theology in American churches has contributed to the political abandonment of Israel in evangelical circles, in favor of supporting the "Palestinian" cause against Israel.  This is apparently due to the Reformed theology that says the Church has replaced Israel in God's plan, which I've discussed here before as in my opinion a misunderstanding of what scripture teaches.  I believe the Church is the fulfillment of God's plan that He began with believing Israel, not a replacement but a fulfillment, a continuation.  It isn't the result of God's rejection of Israel but the completion of His plan through the coming of the promised Messiah, which goes back to Eden.  Apparently some Reformed or Covenant theology sees it as a substitution instead of a fulfillment.  In either case it is true that earthly Israel is no longer God's people as only BELIEVING Israel is God's people and that's the Church. 

HOWEVER, we're also talking about spiritual Israel versus earthly Israel (or "Jacob") as I've looked at it -- and I could be wrong about this way of looking at it but it makes sense of some things for me.   Looking at it this way, there is no "replacement" of Israel at all.  Earthly Israel today is the playing out of Old Testament teaching as misunderstood by unbelieving Jews, but it makes no sense to me to take the Reformed view that God has utterly abandoned them, let alone to treat them as some kind of specially evil earthly nation.  God hasn't abandoned a single earthly nation on this planet, why would He abandon the Jews who represent His firstborn chosen people?  If only for the honor of His name among the peoples God is not going to abandon even apostate earthly Israel. 

We know from scripture that a time will come when a huge number of Jews will recognize their true Messiah, and we also know that Jesus is going to return to the Mount of Olives.  God hasn't abandoned that piece of real estate or the Jewish people even in their apostate condition.  And how can it be denied that they are THERE, on that land that God originally gave Abraham?  That couldn't happen without God's willing it.  Yes, that land was a type of a heavenly Promised Land that Abraham himself looked to, as so much of the Old Testament gives us types that point to Christ and our redemption through Him, but in earthly terms it still represents that promise God gave to him. 

AND historically speaking God has clearly supported the nation of Israel miraculously against many of the attacks by her Arab neighbors since she became a nation in 1948.  There is no doubt in my mind that Israel, for all her unbelief, is still under God's protection and still figures in God's plan for the finale of Planet Earth.  AT THE SAME TIME there is also no doubt in my mind that earthly Israel is under God's judgment for their apostasy and rejection of their Messiah, which can certainly be seen in their being surrounded by implacable enemies.  Only God could juggle these two facts but that's what He's doing.

Theologically it makes no sense to treat Israel as if it doesn't exist or isn't in fact back on that particular piece of land given to them, but it's also political and historical blindness to take up the "Palestinian" cause against Israel.  Surely the Palestinians are a miserable people we need to pray for, but they are the pawns of their Israel-hating leaders who invented the whole idea of a "Palestinian people" in the first place to be a thorn in the side of Israel. 

There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.  The area known as Palestine was almost barren of population when the Jews began to settle it.  It had no official name, it had no government, it had no "people."  Mark Twain wrote a description of the land as a wilderness on his visit there in the late 19th century.  The accusation that the Jews stole the land from a "Palestinian people" is just bogus.  They bought whatever land was owned by the few who owned it, but the over five million people who today take the name of "Palestinians" are the descendants of citizens of all the surrounding Arab nations who originally came to the area to work for the Jews as their nation was being built up.  When the first Arab attack on Israel was planned, the Arabs living in Israel were warned to flee the country to protect themselves.  They became the "Palestinian" refugees whose refugee status was then blamed on Israel although it came about through the Arab warning of the imminent attack.

Over the decades attempts to bring peace to the region between Israel and the "Palestinians" have included many generous concessions by Israel to form a Palestinian State, that were nevertheless rejected by the "Palestinians," over and over and over, and yet the reason for this continues to go unrecognized by most of the world:  the refusal to accept any compromise whatever with the nation the Arabs want not to exist at all, and which their maps show as not existing at all.  There is NO peace plan that will ever work for this reason.   America has been right all these decades to support Israel, but the ridiculous "peace plans" we've tried to foist on the region show a basic blindness to the true political situation.

The "Palestinian" cause has been invented entirely as a ruse to give Israel a bad reputation in the eyes of the world and ultimately to eliminate the nation from the planet altogether as many Arab leaders have so often made clear is their desire.   There is a book which details this plot through historical facts and quotes that is available at Amazon,  Philistine: The Great Deception, by Ramon Bennett, which I got from the ministry of The Berean Call back before 9/11. 

Whatever your theology, the historical facts ought to tell you that supporting the "Palestinian cause" which is founded on devious Arab plots against Israel, is not the side to be on.

=============================
We need a new Protestant Reformation.    

Replacement Theology again

	I just posted a comment I received while I was away for the last month, on a blog entry about Replacement Theology, the idea that Israel was God's chosen people but lost that status so that now the Church inherits the promises to Israel.   The comment writer advised listening to John MacArthur on the subject so I found a ten minute talk of his at You Tube.   I don't claim to be up on all the issues involved in this controversy and I may have some of it wrong, so comments on this post are welcome.    But here's my take on MacArthur's talk:   It may be that there is such a thing as Replacement Theology which describes Israel as having forfeited God's promises so that now the Church has replaced Israel in inheriting those promises.  I don't know for sure.  MacArthur calls those who believe in Replacement Theology Amillennialists.    Since I don't believe there are two different saved entities, the Church and the nation of Israel, but only one body of believers, the Church, I can be accused of a version of Replacement Theology.  But I'm not an amillennialist (I discussed this belief sometime ago on my End Times Monitor blog), and I don't think in terms of the Church "replacing" Israel AT ALL.  There is no such thing as "replacement theology" in reality in my view.   I haven't actually run across the idea as MacArthur describes it but as I said perhaps it is held by some.  In any case I don't share it.   I don't know what position I represent exactly but I am very sure it is not unique to me.  The idea is basically that the Old Testament is full of "types and shadows" of God's redemptive plan, types of Christ certainly in many OT figures, as well as in the tabernacle design, but also "Israel" was a type.  Types are symbols or templates or prophetic figures, they are not the Reality.  The Reality of the types of Christ is Christ Himself.   The earthly nation and people of Israel in the Old Testament were a type of the Church, the Jewish believers from Abraham on are all the Church, the Church in an incomplete form, which Christ completed.  The Church in the Old Testament also includes all the pre-Abrahamic believers, the Patriarchs from Seth to Noah for instance, and Job as well..    Certainly Israel was and is a real place on the planet, but it is nevertheless a type of something greater, something heavenly, that is the TRUE land promised to God's people.  Israel itself merely represents or typifies that promised land, it is not in itself that promised land, except in the most limited, temporary interim sense.    So it's not that the promises no longer apply to the Jews, it's that they ALWAYS applied to God's people whoever and whenever and wherever they are found -- "God's people" meaning BELIEVERS.  Not all Israel believed.  Israel in one type IS the Church, the Israel of the believing Jews.  There is no replacement, the promises belonged then and always to believing Israel AS the Church.    We are to understand the Old Testament through the New Testament.  One very important clue to how we are to understand the land given to Abraham for instance is to be found in the Letter to the Hebrews, which is quite clear that Abraham did not regard the earthly land of Canaan, now Israel, as the land God was promising to him:   Hebrews 11:9-10  By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:  For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.   If Abraham didn't view it that way why are so many these days insisting on this view of it?  On this planet we dwell in "tabernacles," or tents, as in an impermanent home, and with our father Abraham we look to another city altogether, built by God, as our permanent dwelling place.   The "land" of promise is not an earthly land at all.  "The meek shall inherit the earth," not a small portion of earth but the entire earth, a renovated earth.     NOW, if someone wants to argue that NEVERTHELESS God has plans for earthly Israel as the End Times are fast engulfing us, pointing to undeniable scriptural fact that great numbers of Jews will be ushered into the Kingdom of God, the Church, in these last days, and showing from scripture whatever references DO apply to an earthly fulfillment of the promises of God, I'm not going to object.  I think the fact that Israel has been reconstituted in our time and is now a state and now a focus of political and religious hatreds from enemies around the world is in itself a very clear indication that God has His hand on her, so I would expect that some of the OT scriptures DO apply to earthly Israel although I haven't done a study to determine which.  This view is all about God's plans to bring the six-thousand-year history He's overseen on this earthly planet to a fitting close that demonstrates that He is indeed God and Lord of Lords.  I also believe that Jesus will literally return to this Earth at the Mount of Olives.  There are scripture references that indicate plenty of events along these lines.   I regard the Millennium as yet future and expect it to be played out on this earthly planet as well.  All that seems quite possible to me from what scripture seems to say.   I'm also not going to suggest that the Jews won't have a specially favored position in the Millennium or the heavenly land of promise.  They were God's firstborn in a sense and I expect them to have places of honor.    Even so, all that plays out on this planet remains incomplete, remains type and shadow in a sense.  God will judge us for our lives here, but our promise is a heavenly promise, the New Jerusalem, not the old, and that is the promise to Jew and Gentile alike.  Ultimately a new heavens and a new earth, the old having passed away completely forever.
11:9  Πίστει παρῴκησεν εἰς τὴν γῆν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν ἐν σκηναῖς κατοικήσας μετὰ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ τῶν συγκληρονόμων τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῆς αὐτῆς Textus Receptus InterlinearReverse Interlinear English (KJV)   [?] Strong's Root Form (Greek) Parsing   By faith g4102    πίστις pistis   he sojourned g3939    παροικέω paroikeō in   g1519    εἰς eis   the land g1093    γῆ gē   of promise, g1860    ἐπαγγελία epaggelia   as   g5613    ὡς hōs   in a strange country, g245    ἀλλότριος allotrios   dwelling   g2730    κατοικέω katoikeō in   g1722    ἐν en   tabernacles   g4633    σκηνή skēnē   with   g3326    μετά meta   Isaac   g2464    Ἰσαάκ Isaak   and   g2532    καί kai   Jacob,   g2384    Ἰακώβ Iakōb   the heirs with him g4789    συγκληρονόμος sygklēronomos   of the same g846    αὐτός autos   promise:   g1860    ἐπαγγελία epaggelia   11:9  πίστει παρῴκησεν εἰς γῆν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν ἐν σκηναῖς κατοικήσας μετὰ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ τῶν συγκληρονόμων τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῆς αὐτῆς GNT Morph 11:9  Πίστει παρῴκησεν εἰς τὴν γῆν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν ἐν σκηναῖς κατοικήσας μετὰ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ τῶν συγκληρονόμων τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῆς αὐτῆς Textus Receptus InterlinearReverse Interlinear English (KJV)   [?] Strong's Root Form (Greek) Parsing   By faith g4102    πίστις pistis   he sojourned g3939    παροικέω paroikeō in   g1519    εἰς eis   the land g1093    γῆ gē   of promise, g1860    ἐπαγγελία epaggelia   as   g5613    ὡς hōs   in a strange country, g245    ἀλλότριος allotrios   dwelling   g2730    κατοικέω katoikeō in   g1722    ἐν en   tabernacles   g4633    σκηνή skēnē   with   g3326    μετά meta   Isaac   g2464    Ἰσαάκ Isaak   and   g2532    καί kai   Jacob,   g2384    Ἰακώβ Iakōb   the heirs with him g4789    συγκληρονόμος sygklēronomos   of the same g846    αὐτός autos   promise:   g1860    ἐπαγγελία epaggelia   11:9  πίστει παρῴκησεν εἰς γῆν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν ἐν σκηναῖς κατοικήσας μετὰ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ τῶν συγκληρονόμων τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῆς αὐτῆς GNT Morph