Apostasy As the Rejection of the Transformation of Ethnic Israel To Spiritual Israel - 3:23 PM, 12/5/2009 |
Apostasy As the Rejection of the Transformation of Ethnic Israel To Spiritual Israel Bernard Pyron Acts 15: 1 says: "And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Acts 15: 5: "But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." This is evidence of an early apostasy coming out of the church at Jerusalem. There are similarities between this early Jerusalem apostasy and the apostasy of classical dispensationalism, which is the dominant man-made theology taught in very many contemporary churches. Both dispensationalism and the early Jerusalem church apostasy show a... failure to accept the transformation of ethnic Israel (I.e. the Jews) into spiritual Israel. Both apostasies represent a rejection of the change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. Dispensationalists say Jeremiah 30 and 31 - the New Covenant - refer to their futuristic tribulation period which is to occur after the rapture of the church and/or to their Jewish millennium. A dispensationalist J. Dwight Pentecost says:... "This covenant must follow the return of Christ at the second advent".4 4 J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958), pages 120-121 "This covenant will be realized in the millennial age" 5 5 Ibid., page 121. Pentecost goes on to say "Regardless of the relationship of the church to the new covenant as explained in these three views, there is one general point of agreement: the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34 must and can be... See More fulfilled only by the nation Israel and not by the Church".6. Some recent dispensationalists have not stressed the theory that the New Covenant is a Jewish covenant. Read Hebrews 10:14-18, Hebrews 12:22-24:,II Corinthians 3:6, and Mark 14:24 and see if this dispensationalist theory holds up. But - the theory of Pentecost and Walvoord is still taught as doctrine in many churches. For a huge percentage of Christians, dispensationalism rather than Scripture is their authority. And dispensationalists, especially those who have become celebrities, are in part the authority for Christians, though many Christians can't name dispensationalists who the church Christians got their doctrines from Charles C. Ryrie (born 1925) says: "basic promise of Dispensationalism is two purposes of God expressed in the formation of two peoples who maintain their distinction throughout eternity." Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 1966, pp.44-45. J. Dwight Pentecost is another dispensationalist theologian who in his book Things To Come ( 1965) says "The church and Israel are two distinct groups with whom God has a divine plan. The church is a mystery, unrevealed in the Old Testament. This mystery program must be completed before God can resume His program with Israel and bring it to completion. These considerations all arise from a literal method of interpretation." (page 193, J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, Zondervan, 1965).... See More For dispensationalists Christians cannot be spiritual Israel. The classical dispensationalists - John Darby, C.I. Scofield, Lewis S. Chafer and Charles C. Ryrie - insist that "Israel" in the Old Testament always means physical or ethnic Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And - the Catholic Church did not replace ethnic Israel. Ethnic Israel was reborn in Jesus Christ. It was transformed rather than replaced. To say that, after the Cross and after the Day of Pentecost, God has two distinct and separate peoples, the Jews and the Church, whom he deals with differently, is a rejection of the Lord's transformation of ethnic Israel into spiritual Israel. Read John 3: 1-7, Galatians 3: 28, Romans 2: 28-29, and Galatians 4: 22-26 John 3: 1-3 "There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2. The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. 3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." This shows that Jews, even Pharisees, must be born again in Jesus Christ to be saved. They are not saved just by their race. Galatians 3: 28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." After reading this verse i don't see how the dispensationalists, who are now so popular in the churches, can say there are two people of God, the Jews and the church. There is only one people who are saved, which is Israel, but Israel reborn. Romans 2: 28-29 "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. Dispensationalists may have difficulties with these verses. To them the Jew is always in Scripture an ethnic Jew, a Jew by race. Paul here is using "Jew" in a metaphoric sense to teach that in the New Covenant the Jew is on the same footing as the Gentile and both must be born again. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is saying that a real Jew can be a Gentile who is born again. Galatians 4: 22-26 "For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. 23. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 24. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. 25. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. Dispensationalists want everything in the Bible to be literal But the Bible has all kinds of metaphors. The Jerusalem which is below and in bondage in the Jerusalem which represents the Old Covenant and the law of Moses. The Jerusalem which is free and is above is the mother of us all - who are saved - is spiritual Israel, the New Covenant of faith and grace as opposed to the Old Covenant of legalism. By not fully accepting the transformation of ethnic Israel into spiritual Israel, the classical dispensationalists support, at least for the Jews, bondage to the Old Covenant and legalism. I know that some dispensationalists will say that Jews are not saved by going through Christ on the cross, but by some other way, while other dispensationalists will deny this is a doctrine of their theology. Some dispensationalists make contradictory statements and are ambiguous on how the Jews are saved. The statements below are from: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/357-john-hagee-salvation "Televangelist John Hagee and Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, whose Cornerstone Church and Rodfei Sholom congregations are based in San Antonio, told The Jerusalem Post that Falwell had adopted Hagee’s innovative belief in what Christians refer to as “dual covenant” theology. This creed, which runs counter to mainstream evangelism, maintains that the Jewish people has a special relationship to God through the revelation at Sinai and therefore does not need “to go through Christ or the Cross” to get to heaven. Scheinberg said this has been Hagee’s position for the 25 years the two have worked together on behalf of Israel and that Falwell had also come to accept it. Falwell sent a representative to the San Antonio launch of Christians United for Israel in early February, as did popular televangelist Pat Robertson. Pastors John Hagee and Jerry Falwell have both denied a report in The Jerusalem Post earlier this week that they embrace the “dual covenant” theology, which holds that Jews are saved through a special relationship with God and so need not become Christians to get to heaven. In a statement to the Post, the Texas-based televangelist Hagee said that neither he nor Southern Baptist pastor Falwell “believe or teach Dual Covenant.” Hagee added that he had “made it a practice for 25 years not to target Jews for conversion” at any “Night to Honor Israel” events. If Jews “inquire about our faith at a later time, we give them a full scriptural presentation of redemption.” ... But who is right, the article attributed to John Hagee and Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg in the Jerusalem Post or John Hagee when he denied he supports a special salvation for Jews John Hagee has a huge church in San Antonio and is the founder of CUFU, Christians United For Israel. Hegee gives the impression that he and CUFI reject the transformation of ethnic Israel to spiritual Israel, even though he may deny he supports salvation for the Jews by the Old Covenant. ""He came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John 1:11)." Nevertheless, any Jew can be saved by faith in Jesus Christ and by being born again.... See More Ethic Israel (the Hebrews and/or Jews) as a Remnant was transformed into spiritual Israel at the Day of Pentecost and beyond Peter and John and a few thousand other Jews were transformed. Peter and John were just fishermen before that great transformation by being in the Lord. This all happened before Gentiles became Christians, or before large numbers of them became believers. This transformed Israel - Jews transformed by the Holy Spirit - is the good olive tree of Romans 11 into which Christian Gentiles are grafted. Romans 11: 17-20 says " And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:" And Romans 11: 24 tells us that "For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?" "Thou" in 11: 17 refers to Christian Gentiles. "Because of unbelief they were broken off" refers to Jews who rejected Jesus Christ. Matthew 8: 11- 12 says "And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Paul was trained as a Prarisee and his transformation into the man who the Lord assigned to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles began when Saul - who became Paul - encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Christ knocked Saul the Pharisee off of his high horse and made him his servant. Paul, however, was not part of that early Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem. Paul and his followers tended to operate out of Antioch in Syria rather than from Jerusalem, where the Christian Jewish community became apostate as shown by Acts 15. Some followers of dispensationalism get things all confused and in danger of being on the way to the spirit of anti-Christ by saying Gentile Christians are grafted into some kind of vague Jewish construct, .without separating out transformed Israel, from the Israel which faithfully followed the Old Covenant and from Talmudic Judaism and the religion of the Pharisees. Dispensationalists tend to reject this transformation of ethnic Israel into spiritual Israel, saying or implying, that Jews remain now under the Old Covenant and perhaps also that the small remnant of Jews who became Christians are under the Old Covenant. Some early classical dispensationalists even said or implied that Jews are saved by race. Later dispensationalists sometimes deny thus, but it is still there as background of dispensationalism. Bernard |
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