Conference: 2006 Pre Trib Study Group
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Professor Emeritus of Preaching, TrinityEvangelical Divinity School
"..men of Issachar, who understood the timesand knew what Israel should do..." --1 Chronicles 12:32
"You know how to interpret the appearance ofthe sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times..." --Matthew 16:3b
"An understanding of Christian prophecy willbe more needed, not less, in the next few years, as 'signs of the times' areread by everyone under the impending deadline of a millennium (2000)" --Professor Garry Wills, NorthwesternUniversity, Under God, 24
The wholeidea of predictive prophecy has always been under attack - fulfilled prophecyis too powerful an apologetic for Satan and his minions to tolerate. TheEnlightenment project was predicated on the notion that human progress isinevitable and that heaven is on earth and virtually reachable now throughhuman genius.[1] All kinds of prophetic futurismare mocked by the realized eschatologies of C.H. Dodd, N.T. Wright, GraemeGoldsworthy[2] and the varied kinds ofpreterism. Contemporary evangelical aberrations like "Openness of God" theologyare engulfed by Alfred North Whitehead's "process philosophy" and deny that Godknows the future and like ourselves is limited to projections of probability.The so-called "emergent church" movement is all over the map but generallydismisses eschatology.[3] This is a splash at the shallow end of the pool. The "twocovenant" idea regarding the Jews and the Church has always had some devoteesbut now Replacement Theology or Supersessionism is sweeping throughevangelicalism like a plague of locusts. These are all more subtle or lesssubtle attacks on Biblical 1 supernaturalism,intended or unintended.
Classicaldispensationalism in its continuity with the early church's insistence on theimminent and premillennial return of Christ (and its implicate a two stageparousia) has been built on the validity of predictive prophecy and an effortto maintain a consistent hermeneutic. "The powers of the age to come" havebegun to break into this present evil age (Hebrews 6:5) but history is movingin linear fashion toward what our Lord termed "the consummation of the age."Harold O.J. Brown argues incisively that J.A. Bengel's Wurtembergian pietismwith its Biblicism and its millennialism was a major force in combatting theEnlightenment.[4] B.H. Carroll of Southwestern Seminary maintainedthat premillennialists don't become modernists. The issues are drawn here and the stakes are high.
Classicaldispensationalism has championed the clear distinction between Israel and theChurch, on exegetical, theological, historical and logical grounds. This ismore than asserting that God has something special for Israel at the end of theage ("as any fool can plainly see" to use L'l Abner's vernacular) -amillennialists like Augustine and Martyn Lloyd-Jones conceded that; thepostmillennialist Charles Hodge said Romans 11 could not be avoided. We believethat Scripture drives us to proclaim a distinct national and landed future forethnic or geo-political Israel at the end of the age: her rebuilding thetemple, her conversion and world-wide witness.
In morerecent years, a hydra-headed, many-pronged movement has arisen which would tearRomans 11 and all relevant passages out of Scripture and with its 2 mountingascendency and increasingly pervasive influence must be carefully examined andI would do so with particular reference to postmodernism's abandonment ofIsrael.
I.THE POSTMODERN ASSAULT ON TRUTH In my view,postmodernism incorporates key elements of Enlightenment rationalism such assecularism, narcissism, relativism and pluralism. But like romanticism earlierit has found the rationalism of modernism sterile and unsatisfying. That it haslost confidence in human reason as sufficient has caused some premature elationamong some among us who celebrate postmodernism. That is like rejoicing thatStalin won over Hitler, but one oppression and tyranny are only replacinganother. In jettisoning rationalism, pomo also throws overboard rationality(which is an essential aspect of the imago dei). In denying objective truth andany absolute moral values, pomo makes human beings simply social constructs.Postmodernism climaxes the Nietzschean crusade to banish God from humanthought. Its denial of any universal truth is fatal.
Pomo deniesobjective history - there is no such reality as a world-view. There is noconnecting of the dots. There is no over-arching meta-narrative, no remedies,no hope.[5] This creates an incrediblequagmire. At the bottom line pomo destroys text and Scripture becomes likeAesop's Fables. Reader response is everything (and originality and plagiarismbecome meaningless). Pomo is presently the engine force driving change in ourculture at the highest levels and it is having a permeating effect. Yet -beware. There is still Enlightenment rationalism (modern science), New 3 Ageideology, old-fashionedromanticism, post World War II existentialism. The average preacher is stillpreaching to 75% or more of the congregation who are still verymuch traditional hearers. Pomo is the trend, it is the tilt and the tendencyenervating our culture. It is another log on the fire of infidelity. Whenimplied or applied, it bears an immense impact on the validity of our claim forIsrael's future.
II.THE TRUTH WE LOVE: GOD'S COVENANT FIDELITYTO ISRAEL Our wholecase for a distinctive future for ethnic Israel is based theologically on our view of thecharacter of a covenant-keeping God and our commitment tohistorical-grammatical exegesis and a concern for the human author's intentionin the writing of divine revelation. In other words, God meant what he said andboth the judgments on Israel and the promised blessings are to be literallyunderstood. Not only does the Old Testament commit to Israel's survival, buther eternal landedness and her possession of and prosperity in that land (theselast contingent on her obedience), her return to the land and her conversionand world-wide witness.
Neither Johnthe Baptist nor the Lord Jesus redefined kingdom promise nor did they transferit or cancel it for Israel. Here is a world-view and in the face of the denialof even the possibility of such a meta-narrative, we cannot surrender. Whateveror whenever alien ideologies have been propounded, our contextualization of themessage cannot be a capitulation or an accommodation. Liberation Theologymaintained we had to accommodate Marxism - and where is Marxism today? We arestedfastly pre-modern and fault Rene Descartes and John Locke for making noappeal to supernatural revelation. Like Kant's denigration of the cognitive,this would sound the death knell for Biblical faith and we would becomeapostate. 4 Look at theevidence on which we stand: Jesus never countermanded or concluded the hope of Israel. In fact, he would"save his people from their sin" (Matthew 1:21, in its strict contextualreference, describing Israel). An ultimate evangelization by a remnant in theend-time will take place "going through the cities of Israel before the Son ofMan comes" (Matthew 10:23). If Israel is now the church, by the way, who isIshmael today? The promised future ministry of Elijah (Malachi 4:5) becomescritical asthe Lord Jesus indicates John the Baptist could be Elijah "if" they werewilling to hear him (Matthew 11:14) but that in fact John the Baptist had beenrejected in the Elijah role (Matthew 17:11) and "the restoration of all things"had then to be deferred. I don't see how we can make sense out of thesepassages without the postponed kingdom concept which has commonly been acceptedamong us. Let's hold on to it. This matter of "the restoration," i.e. theTheocratic Kingdom and its deferral is a critical piece of evidence.
Later Jesusrefers "to the renewal of all things" (Matthew 19:28, NIV) and how his apostleswould "sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." So, has Godobliterated and superseded ethnic Israel? He indicates that the Jewish templewould be left desolate - "for I tell you, you will not see me again until yousay, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'" (Matthew 23:39). Afuture generation of Jews would "see him again." He speaks to his listeners andby prophetic telescoping reaches forward to an end-time population. Similarlythe Olivet Discourse has at points a distinctly Jewish cast ("not on theSabbath") and a testimony which the end-time Jewish remnant would render(Matthew 24:14). None other than Dr. Luke affirmed that "Jerusalem will betrampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled"(21:24). Something in the end-time. At 5 the judgmentof the living nations at Christ's return in power and glory, at issue will betreatment of the Savior's "brothers" (Matthew 25:34-35) out of greattribulation.
The book ofActs does not admit as the last word that "Israel has failed." Indeed the kingdomwould be "restored" to Israel (1:6) and again, Christ would remain in heaven"until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long agothrough his holy prophets" (3:21). The rebuilding of "David's fallen tent" andits restoration will be effected in order "that the remnant of men may seek theLord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does thesethings that have been known for ages" (15:16-18). God called Jonah asecond-time.
Romans 11 isa chair passage clearly showing that while the natural branches were cut off,God has not rejected his people (11:1). They will yet find restoration which is"life from the dead" (11:15, clearly building on Ezekiel 36 and 37). Thenatural branches will "be grafted into their own olive tree" (11:24). This isnot simply Jewish individuals baptized by the Spirit into the Body of Christ. Indeed "Israel's hardening in part" (asa nation) will continue only "until the full number of the Gentiles has comein...and so all Israel will be saved" (in a great final people movement to theSavior) in fulfillment of the promised New Covenant with God's ancient people.Israel's distinctive identity is sub-merged in this church age (1 Corinthians12:13), and in the church age all believers "partake of the root and fatness ofthe olive tree" (Romans 11:17), and as such beneficiaries arrogance andcondescension toward Israel are most unfitting and unbecoming (11:18, 21).God's call to them is "irrevocable" (11:28). The natural branches are not madeinto wild olivebranches. Ethnic identification is not altogether and forever superseded. 6 Even in theface of the inclusive nature of the church in this age, there is the "promiseour twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled" (Acts 26:7) and James writes to "thetwelve tribes scattered among the nations" (1:1). Not once in the fifty fourreferences to Israel in the New Testament is the church called Israel - thepoint-of- reference in each case being ethnic Israel even in Galatians 6:16where Paul speaks of "the Israel of God." There is no reason this is not areference to ethnic Israel as are all of the other references. Even in thegospel dispensation Israel has a certain identifiable priority - "to the Jewfirst" (Romans 1:16, 2:10) - incomprehensible unless Israel has a specialstatus in the on-going plan of God. And when John in the Apocalypse describes"how every eye will see him" in his coming in power and glory to set up theKingdom, "all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him" but specialmention is made of "even those who pierced him" (1:7). How could it be arguedthat "God has rejected his people? BY NO MEANS"? (11:1).
In the Bookof Revelation we have "the saints of God" (8:3-4, 11:18, 13:7,10, 14:12, 16:6,17:6) who are to be seen as Jews who are saved in the Tribulation and Gentileswho are saved largely through their witness (the antecedent reference must beDaniel 7:18, 22,25 where the "saints" must be seen as Israel). I do not believethe church is to be found on earth in the tribulation (cf 1 Thessalonians 1:10,5:9). The church age is detailed in Revelation 2-3, the twenty four elders arein heaven (chapters 4-5)[6]during the Tribulation (chapteers 6-19). The true church which enters God'sopen door of service (3:8) is promised extrication from "the hour of trial"(3:10) and enters the open door of heaven (4:1).
7 Thus the church as such is a non-factor on earth duringthe penultimate rebellion of the unholy trinity, since the "Man of sin" setshimself up to be worshipped in the temple which can only mean that asubstantial "restoration" has taken place (2 Thessalonians2:7-9). Israel has not disappeared or been absorbed in the church, but is a primaryplayer and actor on the stage of tribulation trauma as described in Revelation.The 144,000 are sealed "from all of the tribes of Israel" (7:1-8). They are notthe Seventh Day Adventists or the elite of the Jehovah's Witnesses elect or thechurch (as George Ladd and so many other surmise). They are Jews and thevanguard of "all Israel" that shall be saved. Through their witness "a greatmultitude"comes "out of the great tribulation" from all the nations (7:9-17).The conversion of the 144,000 is I believe described in 11:1-13, where inresponse to the Elijah ministry predicted in Malachi 4 (the two witnesses),they are converted. Inhabitants of Jerusalem "give glory to God" (11:13) whichis repentance and conversion language. As represented in 14:1-5, the 144,000 are the "firstfruits" of a greatharvest. In chapter 12 Satan makes war against the woman who gives birth to aSon (this woman is Israel, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given,"Isaiah 9:6). The dragon greatly enraged also makes "war against the rest of heroffspring" (her spiritual progeny, saved Gentiles), many of whom will bemartyred because they will not take the mark of the beast (12:17).
We mustremember also that Armageddon which figures largely in the end-time finale isplaced in the land promised to Abraham. The New Jerusalem descending (the homeof the church) exists in relation to the earth (the home of restored Israel)like a gigantic space module. Even in the millennium and in eternity futurethere will not be a fusion of Israel and the Church. Yet fascinatingly on thegates of the New 8 Heaven arewritten the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. To the last page of Scripturegeo-political Israel survives and thrives as an identifiable entity. Noreplacement theology or supersession here. And the reason for this is anchoredin the very nature and character of God, as Malachi 3:6 states so lucidly: "Ithe Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Eversince the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees andhave not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LordAlmighty. And indeed they shall return physically to the land and spirituallyto our Lord Jesus.
These truthsare a rich corpus and are precious to us as to many before - Joachim of Fiore,the Puritans on both sides of the Atlantic, the continental Pietists, toLutherans like George Peters and J.A. Seiss, to Presbyterians like JamesBrooks, Donald Grey Barnhouse and James Montgomery Boice, to Methodists likeWilliam E. Blackstone, to Congregationalists like C.I. Scofield and D.L. Moody,to Baptists like W.B. Riley, W.A. Criswell and Adrian Rogers, to PlymouthBrethren like John Nelson Darby and Walter Scott, to Christian and MissionaryAlliance like A.W. Tozer, Anglicans like Griffith Thomas and on through thatconstellation of editors, teachers like A.C. Gaebelein, Lewis Sperry Chafer,Wilbur M. Smith and John Walvoord. Like every revealed truth in Holy Writ, thistruth is under postmodern assault - "they have taken away our Lord." We mustnot and shall not give way. The fact is that Jesus is alive and he is going towin!
III.A STRATEGY FOR ENGAGEMENT WITHPOSTMODERNISM Beyond thefaithful exposition of the truths of the Blessed Hope and God's purpose for hisancient covenant people, I would offer the following observations: 9 1)as God'speople have withstood all kinds of spiritual assault in past ages, we cannotexpect to be exempt. But, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Asmainline denominations have apostatized in Europe and North America, thefast-growing Anglican churches in Africa, for instance (where Nigeria will have 500,000,000people before this century is over, if the Lord tarries) through their leadersare saying to the West: in your denial of Scripture, your radical feminism andyour espousal of the gay rights agenda, you are dying. Wake up! Liberalism lostout by accommodating Enlightenment categories and evangelicalism will lose outif it mistakenly supposes that cozying up to postmodernism and giving way isthe answer. This is to court total disaster. We shall not win people to Christby aping the culture which is in decadence and a serious moral free fall. Wemust not be diverted from the Great Commission by secondary involvements whichhave validity and value but which can consume our attention and our energy. Thecurrent observable horizontalizingof evangelicals is undercutting the primacy of the supernatural Gospel. TheGospel is more than a cultural artifact - it is God's power for salvation!
2)systemscome and go. We must not panic and become spastic before formidibleadversaries. Anti-cognitive movements have arisen - even in Greek philosophy wehave the cynics and the sophists - but intermittently in the history of God'speople grave threats to the faith have arisen. Gertrude Himmelfarb has pointedout that already in Europe we have post-postmodernism which insists thattoday's postmodernism is not sufficiently activistic on social and justiceissues. 9/11 has been hard on postmodernists. Again, the two thirds world isnot pomo. Heath White argues that postmodernism may mutate. 10 take -trying to get hold of postmodernism is like a hen trying to lay an egg on anescaltor. It is all over the map. It may well collapse under the weight of itsstudied ambiguities. Such subjectivity quickly lands you on the reefs andshoals of nihilism.
3)postmodernismhas nothing to say to anti-Semitism, one of the most virulent tools which Satanhas. Stanley Fish, one of the doyens of postmodernism was pressed by by LarryKing: "Do you believe that the Holocaust was evil?" He stuttered and stammeredbut would not commit himself. But can people live in this suspended animationindefinitely? Even Fish in publishing his new book on John Milton opined thathe hoped that people would now finally understand what John Milton reallymeant. Richard Rorty the pomo guru just retired from Stanford has made it clearthat he wants to live his life by the Golden Rule and the second table of theTen Commandments. Pomo is an unsatisfactory solution - it is flawed and flat.This quintessential moral relativism is in fact incoherent. It is nonsense. Itis doomed although it may inflict incredible damage before it collapses.
4)we mustbeware of prophetic over-reach. We have a strong case which is verticallyconsistent and horizontally fits the facts. Let us be cautious in claiming toomuch, too fast beyond what Scripture really says. Greater Israel as promised toAbram - "from the great river of Egypt to the Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18) and ison the facade of the Knesset in Jerusalem - is millennial in its ultimatescope. "Land for peace" is dangerous, in my view, but Begin negotiated thereturn of the Sinai to Egypt; Sharon/Olmert the evacuation from Gaza. Abrahamalthough promised the land insisted on paying the Hittites for the burial placeof Sarah (Genesis 23:3ff). A defensible Israel is in everyone's best interest.Petro-politics and the growth of 11 Muslim populationin the west jeopardizes backing Israel even in our own country. YetIslamo-fascism is terrifying many thoughtful people around the world. Israelipolitics are complex and intricate. We should be very careful about assertingthat Katrina was God's punishment on the United States for pressuring Israel onGaza. Israel was divided and Sharon won every voting round for his policy. Wemust not be like the "friends" of Job who were so cock-sure they knew why Jobsuffered. PatRobertson feels God sent the stroke upon Sharon because he gave away Gaza. WoodrowWilson also had a serious stroke after backing the Balfour Declaration in 1917.What then was the meaning of Tsunami? Or of the Pakistani earthquake whichkilled 75,000 in a country which has gone out on a limb to cooperate with theUnited States when that has not been at all popular? How finely can we ascribe causation to natural disasters- can we infallibly read the mind of God? In dialoguing with students inundatedwith pomo propaganda and under great pressure, we should heed Peter's words:"Be always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reasonfor the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clearconscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior inChrist may be ashamed of their slander" (1 Peter 3:15). A case in point wouldbe the recent fulminations of the formerly conservative Kevin Phillips in arecent book.[8] He argues that one third ofAmerica now believes in the Rapture and provide the power-base which is pushingAmerican foreign policy in the Middle East. Abit over-stated but ofconsiderable interest.
Let us allbeware of prophetic over-reach. In what lies ahead, Israel will need faithfulfriends which does not mean endorsement of everything she does. She too can 12 egregiouslymiscalculate as the recent military action in Lebanon made abundantly clear.There will be dark days ahead for Israel and her friends. But even the UPUSAhas backed down from divestment.
5)withoutremedies or hope, postmodernistic camp followers may be susceptible to theproclamation of the hope we have through the resurrection and in the secondadvent of our Lord. People cannot live without hope very long. Experiments showthat even rats need hope. We preach faith - we preach love. I am asking ministerialgatherings around the country and abroad: why aren't we preaching hope? 62% ofthe American people say they believe in the Second Coming and 42% believeChrist could come back in their lifetime. But what do they really know aboutit? Since pomos are allergic to history and to meta-narrative, we havesomething to offer. Heath White reminds us that for pre-moderns, texts havemeaning; for moderns, texts have multiple meanings; for postmoderns texts haveno meaning.
What do theyvalue? Literature is their "master-discipline." They love word games andmetaphor.[9] Although their literarydeconstruction utterly macerates text, let us tell the story of a small butancient people. Let us share their age-long hope of returning to their homelandand something of the agonies and suffering of their pilgrimage. Narrative neverestablishes truth - it can only illustrate it, but this can be the hook. Let usfind occasions with young and old to winsomely tell the story of God'sancient and dispersed people and of their new homeland and their struggles. As the GulfStream is not overcome by the ocean, so the Jews have remained distinct andapart and so they always will be - "He who appoints the sun to shine by 13 day, whodecrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that itswaves roar--the Lord Almighty is his name: 'only if these decrees vanish frommy sight,' declares the Lord, 'will the descendants of Isarael ever cease to bea nation before me'" (Jeremiah 31:35-36).
I am aconfessed opssimist. I am a short-range pessimist but a long-term optimist. Ido not believe we are going to save our culture or transform the world. Tikkunolam or "fixing the world" is not on God's agenda in this age. The tares andthe wheat grow together until the end. "Few there be who find it..." God wants people to be saved, includingthe pomo-imprisoned. And we have hope - a hope that will neverdisappoint - hope for Israel, hope for the church, hope for this old planet,the hope of eternal life, the blessed hope of Christ's translation of hisbridal church. Let us sound the message of hope in an increasingly hopelessage. Maranatha! The Lord is coming!
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[1] Crane Brinton, The Shaping of the ModernMind (New York: Mentor, 1953) 142. Builds his case on Carl Becker's TheHeavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers. [2] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bibleas Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2000) argues that "ALL(his) prophecy was fulfilled in the gospel event at the first coming of Jesus,"93. Really? [3] Brian Maclaren, The Secret Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005). Overtlypro-Palestinian. [4] Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984) 392. [5] Heath White, Postmodernism 101 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006). On the whole a helpful handbook. [6] Merrill C. Tenney, InterpretingRevelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957) 190. Tenney holdsthe 24 elders represent Old Testament saints and the Church - they have crownsand reign with Christ. [7] op. cit. 158. Through it all Augustinian andThomistic metaphysical realism has survived and thrived. [8] Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Periland Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury (New York: Viking, 2006). Interviewed, Jerusalem Post, May 19-25, 2006, 27. [9] I am dependent on HeathWhite at points inadvancing this proposal. I think he is right on this. |
