Content in category Church Doctrine

Israel and the Church: Two Views

I actually have a Scofield (the ’67 edition with word changes) and like it a lot. I favor its literal and futuristic approach to prophecy and Israel, but not its particular variety of dispensationalism, particularly its view of the nature of the church.

There are two basic pillars that support ‘pre-tribulational’ dispensationalism. One is the doctrine of imminence (the view that no prophetic event stands in the way of the potentiality of an any moment coming of Christ, a potential that has existed since the earliest apostles first preached the ‘blessed hope’, which they define as exemption from the great tribulation). The second pillar is dispensationalism’s unique view of the nature of the church. According to dispensationalism, the church had no existence before Pentecost and does not (cannot) exist on earth after the rapture. I see both of these pillars as seriously flawed.

According to dispensationalism, there are two distinct programs of God, two distinct peoples of God, and two distinct dispensations for Israel and the church. The church belongs to God’s ‘mystery’ program for this dispensation only. The dispensation of the ‘church’ is seen as confined to the period between Pentecost and the rapture. In their view, the concept of the mystery removes the church from anything anticipated in OT prophecy. Therefore, it is believed that the dispensation of the church must end with the rapture before the “prophetic program” for Israel can be resumed. Thus the events of the last seven years (Daniel’s seventieth week), are understood to belong to an entirely different dispensation.

It is believed that the church is a mystery that occupies a parenthetical interim between Pentecost and the rapture, and thus stands in marked contrast to God’s “prophetic program” for Israel. According to dispensationalism’s erroneous view of the Pauline mystery, the church is so completely distinguished from even the righteous of Israel as to constitute a distinct people of God with its own distinct destiny. This doctrine of the two peoples of God is THE defining hallmark of pre-trib dispensationalism.

Note: (These features of dispensational thought developed in the mid 19th century out of an effort to understand the distinction between Israel and the church. Early, pretribulationism was not initially born out of a desire to escape tribulation as unfairly accused. Rather, the primary motive was to defend the hope that Christ could come any moment, i.e., the doctrine of imminence.)

We too distinguish between Israel and the church, but not in this way. There is another choice that does not require the dispensationalist’s notion of two peoples of God.

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The First Resurrection

What would you say is the cost of making the first resurrection either the new birth or something else?

Contrasted with the first resurrection coming at the end of the last persecution with the destruction of the final beast, the obvious answer is the necessary details of all that. But is there something more that is lost? It sure feels like it.

Lost is all that God has invested in the demonstration that Israel was first set apart to demonstrate and vindicate “through their fall” and national resurrection by a sovereign act of discriminating grace (Eze 36:22, 32). Lost is all the meaning of God’s own affliction and sacrifice in their temporary surrendering over to blindness and dispersion “for our sake”. (Ro 11:11-12, 28). Lost too is all that God has invested in the crisis events of the end that signal and lead up to that great transition of greatest consequence to millions.

Lost is the purpose of 1000 years of open demonstration and vindication of the ‘everlasting covenant’, as every Jew who revered the scripture understood it before the cross, and as the apostles of the Lamb manifestly understood it after the cross.

In all references to the forward looking “everlasting / new covenant” the expectation is clear, that AFTER a final tribulation of unequaled severity, the penitent survivors of Israel would be born to new national life in one day (Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9) through the spiritual regeneration of the new / everlasting covenant. That “from that day and forward”, not SOME but “ALL” would know the Lord from the least to the greatest (Isa 4:3; 45:17, 60:21; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 39:22, 28-29), and this blessed preservation would extend without exception unto children’s children, “world without end” (Isa 44:3; 59:21; 61:9; 65:24; 66:22; Eze 37:25).

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The Apostolic Approach to Evangelism

[…] The approach builds around the well known story of Joseph, as type and parable of both comings of Christ to Israel. The idea is to begin with a couple of key portions of Old Testament prophecy in order to establish a simple outline of the prophetic future, particularly as it pertains to the relationship of Christ’s two comings to Israel. This will provide a convenient frame of reference that can enable and equip any believer to make the case for the mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament, particularly in its relationship to Israel and the events that conclude the age.

To introduce the subject matter, I sometimes begin with people’s universal familiarity with the story of Bethlehem as an opportunity to show them the amazing prophecy in Mic 5:2, pointing out its great antiquity (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then call their attention to an even less known feature of that prophecy in the next verse. “Therefore shall He (Yahweh) ‘give them up’ UNTIL the time that she who travails has brought forth; then shall the remnant of His brethren return to the children of Israel (Mic 5:3). It is the age long “giving up” of Israel, but we want to identify the cause of this abandonment as something more ultimately provoking of divine displeasure than covenant failure in general. […]

The Mystery of Election

As to the mysteries of foreordination and predestination, there’s too much connected to this than can be accounted for by divine foresight of what men will do with the words and actions of God in history. It not something I care to debate but I must contend for what scripture […]

“Behold, I Was Shapen in Iniquity…”

Do you know how long the Jews have not believed in Adamic sin being imputed? How modern is that notion? You ask an interesting question on the Jewish rejection of the imputation of Adam’s sin. I don’t think there was ever a time when rabbinic Judaism has not rejected the […]

Let Us Labor Therefore to Enter into That Rest

Illogical as it may sound, I believe it is biblical to say that God has chosen some, not all, to eternal life. Paradoxically, and at the very same time, there is not one word of scripture that says that the other side of this affirmation has got to be that He has elected all the rest to hell. That is a human deduction. It is not the product of divine revelation. I realize it’s attractive and may seem logically unavoidable, but it’s not ‘revealed’ truth!

Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

Love believes and hopes all things. I sometimes think that the best tact to take is to present our case, not with caustic or strident tones of dogmatism, but a kind of, “what would you have me do with this evidence from the scripture?” “How would you better harmonize these texts?”What do you mean by that? Paul Volk In the end, there is only one finally decisive question; it is, “What saith the Scripture?” To quote a dear friend, “What does the text SAYYYY?!” By the way, that friend, whom you may know, Paul Volk, has very recently written the best little booklet on this subject that I have personally ever seen. It is titled, “What Do You Mean By That?: A Brief Guide to Interpreting Scripture.” I wish it had been the first book on that subject that I read after my salvation. It would have saved me a lot of grief. […]

The Question of Hell

1 Chronicles 16:34 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. This appears in the book 50 times and I question the validity of this being true, as I was thinking, how can this be true if there is a place called […]

The Seventy Sevens of Daniel Chapter 9 (Video)

In Chapter 9, Daniel realizes that the 70 years of exile is almost over, so he cries out to God for mercy for himself and his people. In response he has a vision of the the angel Gabriel who begins to explain God’s timetable for delivering Israel. Reggie Kelly and Phil Norcom lead us through the five visions of Daniel with emphasis on what they mean for Israel and the Church (The Mystery of Israel).

A complete session of the Video from September’s “People Prepared” Convocation on Daniel Chapter 9 is now available on YouTube. A direct link is found below:
Chapter Nine (click here if you see nothing below)

Acts 2:17 and Israel in the End Time

[…]

Until then, the gospel reveals that power and salvation of that “still coming” DAY has come in unexpected advance of THAT DAY through the revelation of the secret hidden in other ages (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11). But according to Paul, this present fulfillment of the covenant through the revelation of the mystery of the gospel and gift of the Spirit cannot stop short of the grafting of the natural branches back into their own place. Paul does not present their return as a generous divine initiative tacked on at the end of the age for good measure. No, it is a covenant necessity demanded by the specific language of the covenant, (Ro 11:26-29), which would only be established with the larger nation at the post-tribulational day of the Lord. That is the eschatology of the OT, which the revelation of the mystery modifies, but does NOT erase. The day of the Lord will bring all that the literal reading of scripture said it will bring.

So I see Peter as saying “this is that,” but this is NOT “all” of that. It is indeed the Spirit promised to Israel in association with the well known day of the Lord. The promise of that day has arrived. It is here. But the day itself, and the full balance that remains to be fulfilled at that time remains for a post-tribulational future. Nothing about that has changed. The powers of the age to come have indeed broken decisively into this present evil prior to and apart from the kind of outward transformation expected in association with the day of the Lord. This, however, does nothing to change all that Scripture promises will come to the broken and penitent remnant that will look upon Him whom they pierced (Zech 12:10), when “that generation” will say with one voice, “blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:39). Hallelujah!

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Mystery of Israel
Reflections on the Mystery of Israel and the Church... by Reggie Kelly

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