Multiple Fulfillments of Prophecy

Back when I worked for Ravi Zacharias, I spent some time chatting with Paul Copan (yes, yes, forgive the name-dropping) and I asked him where he stood on eschatology. He told me, "You know, Michael, I think that when it's all said and done, we'll find out that all three major positions (i.e., preterism, historicism, and futurism) will have turned out to be correct."

Maybe he was just trying to avoid an argument, but his words struck me as profound. Since studying our Jewish roots, I've become even more convinced of his wisdom.

In the West, we think of time as linear and of prophecy as simple prediction-and-fulfillment. But in the Hebrew and other Ancient Near East cultures, they think of time as circular--not in an ultimate sense, as in Hinduism, but in the sense that things have a tendency to repeat--and of prophecy as the fulfillment of a pattern.

So then, let's consider a prophecy that there should be little debate on, 2 Sa. 7:12-16:

And when thy [David's] days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be My son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But My mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.

So, does this prophecy refer to Solomon, or to the Messiah? The answer is both.

Solomon followed his father David, built a house for YHVH's Name, and God established his kingdom. When he committed idolatry, God punished him "with the rod of men"--specifically, the sword of Hadad the Edomite (1 Ki. 11:14) and Jeroboam the son of Nebat (v. 26). But God did not take Israel from him as He did Saul, but waited until Solomon had passed and his son had taken the throne, and even then He took away only the northern kingdom (vv. 11-13). And so David's line continued on the throne.

Yeshua also followed His father David. He is building a spiritual house for YHVH's Name in the Church (1 Pt. 2:5) and will also build a physical Temple for the Millennium (Ezk. 40-48). While He never committed iniquity Himself, He became sin for us so that by His stripes, administered by the rod of men, we could be healed. And though the Father's mercy departed from Him for a brief time as He hung on the Cross, it did not depart forever as it did from Saul, nor was the Kingdom taken from Him--on the contrary, by His eternal life, the throne of David is forever secure.

Examples abound: Isaiah prophecy of a child whose birth would be a sign of YHVH's fidelity to the house of David (Isa. 7:14ff) was fulfilled both in the near term by the prophet's own son, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (ch. 8), but it also looked forward to the birth of the Messiah, who fulfilled the prophecy in even more literal detail (e.g., being born of a virgin, being called "God With Us") and went on to fulfill parts of the prophecy that Maher did not (chapters 9-12, which should not be removed from the stream of though begun in chapter 7).

Prophecy may even refer to past events which prefigure future ones. We are all familiar with prophetic types, as when Abraham "sacrificed" his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah, or Joseph was sold by his brothers as dead only to be made king over them. Or consider Matityahu's (Mathew's) use of Hos. 11:1 in Mat. 2:15. Consider the prophecy in context:

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.

Was Matityahu wrong to quote this as a Messianic prophecy, as Jewish anti-missionaries claim? Or did he perhaps engage in a legitimate bit of "newspaper exegesis," seeing that the Messiah, just like Israel, had gone down into Egypt for safety in a time of trouble, only to come back out to the Land God had promised Abraham? In doing so, Matityahu shows us the connection between the Messiah and Israel, one that cannot be broken.

In fact, numerous of the Psalms which are quoted in the NT as Messianic prophecy were originally written by David to describe his own situation. In many cases, a highly poetic and allegorical description of David's situation, like Psalm 22, describes the betrayal and crucifixion of Yeshua in excruciating and literal detail.

Therefore, I actually agree with the preterist and historicist that the Olivet Discourse actually do prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. I even leave open the possibility that the Apocalypse looked backward (being written over twenty years later) to the Temple's destruction even as it looked forward to the eschaton. I also agree with the historicist that the Revelation has within its scope the last 2000 years of Church history.

Where I disagree with both is that it ends there. Therefore, preterism and historicism are not so much wrong as they are incomplete. The chiefmost gripe I have with each is not in what they assert, but in what they deny: That YHVH has yet a place for "Israel of the flesh" in His plan, despite the evidence of our times and the testimony of Scripture; that He will keep all of His promises to the letter; and that there will indeed be a time of great testing for all of the children of Abraham, both the natural seed and those adopted into the Messiah, before Yeshua's bodily return to physically rule over the earth.

Shalom.

Revelation Was NOT Written Before 70 AD!

This is one of those subjects that comes around every so often in my debates on FR, so I'm just going to post it here so that I can just make a link or copy-and-paste whenever it comes up again.

Early Church tradition overwhelmingly supports that Yochanan (John) was exiled to the quiet, lonely isle of Patmos during the reign of Domitian, which would put the writing of Revelation somewhere between 90 to 96 A.D. The earliest quote verifying the date of the writing of this book comes from Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of Yochanan the Emissary himself. In about 180 A.D., Irenaeus wrote:

We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision. For that was seen no very long time since, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian's reign. (Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 30.3)

Preterists, whose position requires that Revelation have been written before Jerusalem’s fall in 70 A.D. (for it undeniably claims to speak of events yet future as of its writing), will try to make the case that Irenaeus was actually referring to Yochanan being seen “towards the end of Domitian’s reign” rather than the “apocalyptic vision.” But how many of us would refer to a revered Apostle with the neuter pronoun “that”? The argument that the pronoun was changed in the Latin translation but was correctly preserved in the Greek quote preserved by Eusebius does not hold up, as we'll see in a moment.

Besides which, Irenaeus’ interpretations of Revelation are decidedly consistent with modern premillennialism. Bear in mind that he wrote Against Heresies primarily as an apologetic work. If Revelation were really so manifestly a prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction, wouldn’t the early Church fathers have recognized it and used it as a part of their witness? Yet history tells us that’s not what happened. Only centuries removed from the event was the “discovery” made of Revelation’s supposed intent to prophesy of Jerusalem’s destruction.

Nor is Irenaeus the only person to comment on the time when this book was written. Eusebius quotes Irenaeus and goes on to cite others that were also exiled during Domitian’s reign in support of Irenaeus’ dating:

And they, indeed, accurately indicated the time. For they recorded that in the fifteenth year of Domitian Flavia Domitilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius Clement, who at that time was one of the consuls of Rome, was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia in consequence of testimony borne to Christ. (Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chapter 1; see also Book V, chapter 7).

If Eusebius understood the Apostle to have been exiled during Nero's reign, why exactly would he offer the exile of other Christians during Domitian's reign as proof that "they"--his sources, evidentially not limited to Irenaeus--"indeed, accurately indicated the time"? Is it not more likely that a scribal error, or even an original typo, crept into Eusebius' work than to assume that he himself misunderstood Irenaeus' statement so aggregiously? Moreover, the above testimony is sandwhiched between two other chapters describing Domitian's persecutions, which would be absurd if Eusebius understood Irenaeus to be referring to Yochanan being seen in Domitian's reign after an exile under Nero's.

If only these two fathers recorded Yochanan's exile to have taken place in the 90s, this would be enough to put the nails in preterism's coffin. But they were not alone: Victorinus wrote that “when John said these things he was in the island of Patmos, condemned to the labour of the mines by Caesar Domitian” (Commentary on the Apocalypse, chapter 10.11), in agreement with Jerome (Illustrious Men, chapter 9) and Hippolytus (On the Twelve Apostles). Nor can the case be made that when the early Church fathers spoke of Domitian in regards to the Apocalypse, they really meant to write ”Domitianou,” a title for Nero, as some have tried to claim. Eusebius speaks of both Nero and Domitian in his works, and never once refers to the former emperor by any name other than Nero. If every early Church father stated in no uncertain terms that the book was written in Domitian’s reign, why in the world would we try to date it decades earlier?

Simply arguing that Irenaeus is fallible is barely a fig leaf of a counter-argument, and amounts to begging the question: The only reason to assume that Irenaeus (and Hippolytus, Victorinus, Eusebius, and Jerome) has the dating of the Revelation wrong is the presumption of preterism, which requires an early date.

Now, if there were any competing traditions from the second through fourth centuries, there might be some reason to doubt all of the above fathers. The closest thing one finds to such a competing tradition is found in the intro of the book in the Syriac version, which reads, "The Revelation which was made by God to John the Evangelist in the island of Patmos, whither he was banished by the Emperor Nero.” However, to cite the Syriac version, you have to ignore the fact that in the original Syriac translation that is dated from the second century, the books of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were not included. The others had been put back in by the fifth or sixth century, but there seems to be some doubt as to whether Revelation was included even then. Indeed, one source states that Revelation “did not appear in the Syriac Testament as late as 1562.” Even if we argue that that date is too late, the fact is that the Syriac version of Revelation’s title was written, at a minimum, four centuries after Yochanan recorded it and is contrary to every other manuscript of the book and the witness of at least five early Church fathers. How exactly is this a point in preterism’s favor?

The fact is that there is really no question about the dating of Revelation except among those who require a certain date in order to make their particular interpretations viable. In this regard, it should be noted that a futurist, premillennial interpretation of Revelation does not depend upon the 90 A.D. dating of the book, and in fact will work perfectly well even given an earlier authorship. That being the case, it should be up to those requiring the earlier date to prove their supposition with clear and decisive evidence.

Shalom

Is the Church an Enemy of the Gospel For Its Own Sake?

"Paul says in Romans 9:6 that 'they are not all Israel, which are of Israel' and in 11:19 that 'The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.' Therefore, the cut-off branches, the Jews, have no more right to claim to be Israel, as that title has passed to the Church."

That's not an exact quote, but it sums up a typical Replacement argument. However, it misses Sha'ul's point entirely, as can be demonstrated by the closing arguments of this three chapter long section:

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
(Romans 11:25-29)

Now, if we are to assume that in Sha'ul's theology that "Israel" now means the Church, that would mean that the Church is partially blinded until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, and that the Church is an enemy of the Gospel because of itself. That makes no sense at all. Therefore, it must follow that by "Israel" here, Sha'ul is speaking of the same Israel of which the majority were blinded in vv. 8-10, the same Israel that he starts chapter 9 by describing:

For I could wish that myself were accursed from the Messiah for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Torah, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Messiah came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. (vv. 3-5)

It is not we Gentile believers who are beloved of God because of the patriarchs--we are beloved solely because of our adoption in Yeshua--but Israel, who received the covenants that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is Israel who received the Torah, the service of God, and the promises. Sha'ul starts chapters 9-11 by defining Israel in such a way that nobody could mistake him for meaning the Ekklesia, and he ends his argument the same way. How then can some read Romans and suppose that God has forever rejected "Israel according to the flesh"?

Some have tried to get around the conclusion that the natural descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a special promise that YHVH will fulfill in the future by positing that "all Israel" means instead all of the Jews who join Yeshua's Ekklesia. However, this also fails to explain Sha'ul's final argument. The Apostle, after all, had already acknowledged that there was "at this present time . . . a remnant according to the election of grace" (11:5), and implies that God has always kept and will always keep a remnant of Israel who are faithful to Him despite the lack of faith of the majority (vv. 2-4). So then, if this remnant is the "all Israel" spoken of in v. 29, then Sha'ul, using the future tense, didn't know what he was talking about.

Moreover, we see in v. 12 that "if the fall of them [Israel] be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?" In other words, though Israel's current blindness was necessary so that the Gospel could spread to the Gentiles, when "all Israel is saved" the "riches" that will come about will be even greater, even comparible to the Resurrection of the dead (v. 15)!

However, we are not to assume that "all Israel" means that every circumcised Jew is automatically saved--that would contradict Sha'ul's clear teaching of chapters 2-3. Rather, "all Israel" should be understood as "Israel as a whole." If I said, "When Yeshua returns, all America will be saved," we wouldn't suppose that to mean everyone born in America since her inception would be retroactively saved, but rather that the nation as a whole at the time of His Coming would be. Likewise Israel.

Sha'ul uses the imagery of an olive tree and her branches. Branches, in Biblical imagery, do not simply denote individuals, but family lines. Thus, the Messiah is repeatedly called the Branch which comes out of David; that is, David's descendant, many times removed. Now, many of these branches were cut off, pruned, because they refused to put their trust in Yeshua HaMashiach. In turn, branches brought from wild trees were grafted into the cultivated tree of Israel. They become part of the tree, nourished by its sap.

Because we are the graftees, Sha'ul warns, "Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee" (v. 18). When the Church boasts against the Jews, we forget that it is not the Ekklesia to whom Israel must be grafted, it is we who must be grafted into Israel through her Messiah.

But those branches which are broken off have not simply been cast away.

And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. 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? (vv. 23-24)

This is not simply saying that individual Jews who become Christians can be saved. This is saying that the whole nation can in fact be regrafted back into their rightful promises--and in fact, Sha'ul goes on to say that this is not merely a possibility, but a promise!

The problem is not in the claim that the Ekklesia, both Jew and Gentile, belong to Israel. We do, just as the Galatians belonged to Rome. The problem is the claim that we are Israel, to the exclusion of the Jewish people, and that therefore the present Jewish nation by that name has no claim to it.

Next: A Rift in God's Kingdom

Shalom.

The True Jew

"But," objects the Replacement Theologist, "doesn't Paul say, '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'?" (Rom. 2:28-29).

Indeed he does, but you completely take this statement out of context if you think that he's therefore saying that a Gentile Christian is the "real Jew."

In the opening chapters of Romans, Sha'ul is establishing that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (3:23). He starts by demonstrating the sinfulness of the pagan Gentiles (1:18-2:8), then goes on to show that the Jews are also under God's judgment (2:17-3:23). Where the (pagan) Gentiles are condemned because though they have an innate knowledge of God and an innate knowledge of what they consider to be sin when it is committed against them but nevertheless worship the n0-gods and do not repent of what they know to be evil, the Jew is condemned by the Law of the Torah. Both are judged according to the light that God has given them, and both are found wanting.

In 2:17, Sha'ul begins, "Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God . . ." This marks the transition: No longer is Sha'ul establishing the guilt of the Gentile; now he is addressing his own people, warning them that they have no reason to boast. Ergo, when he is addressing the issue of, "Who is a real Jew?" he's not even touching on the issue of the status of Gentile believers!

There is an old Jewish tradition that Abraham will let no circumcised Jew suffer condemnation to Ge'Hinnom (Gehenna, or Hell). Sha'ul here seems to be addressing that tradition. To the Jew that is depending on his circumcision, his Jewishness, and the fact that he knows the Torah to save him, Sha'ul writes, "Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?" (2:21). In other words, do you practice what you preach? "For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the Torah: but if thou be a breaker of the Torah, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision" (v. 25). In other words, if you go about breaking the Torah, you might as well be a pagan Gentile.

It may be thought that by "circumcision of the heart," Sha'ul is saying that only Christians--or at least only Christian Jews--are real Jews, since the heart is circumcised by the Spirit (v. 29, Col. 2:11). However, this presupposes that circumcision of the heart is a New Covenant concept connected to the giving of the Spirit at Shavuot (Pentecost). Not so--in fact, there are repeated commands in the Tanakh for Israel to circumcise their hearts (Deu. 10:16 & 30:6 and Jer. 4:4). The idiom therefore does not refer to being "born-again in the Spirit" per se--it means to internalize the external rite. A true Jew is not just one who was born to Jewish parents and circumcised on the eighth day, or who just goes through the motions for the sake of appearances. A true Jew is one who lives his Jewishness, keeping God's mitzvot (commandments) and making them a part of himself, doing so not for the praise of men, but for the praise of God. (Sha'ul is employing a pun here, as Y'hudah means "Yah's Praise.")

Therefore, I don't think that Sha'ul was addressing the issue of faith in the Messiah at all, at least not at this point in his letter. Rather, he seems to be addressing the Hellenized Jew, the one assimilated in all but name. He may even be addressing the synagogue-going Jew who just shows up for the sake of community appearances, the praise of men. But he is not, in my mind, addressing the God-fearing, Torah-keeping (albeit imperfectly) Jew who had not yet come to a conclusion about whether the Messiah had truly come.

On the other hand, he certainly was saying that the truest expression of Jewishness was to put one's trust in the Messiah of Israel! He was also issuing a challenge to his brothers of blood to look at those Gentiles who "have not the Torah . . . [but] shew the work of the Torah written in their hearts . . ." (Rom. 2:14, 15). The reference to the Torah being written on their hearts is a clear reference to the fact that these Gentiles were partakers of the New Covenant in the Messiah (cf. Jer. 31:33). He was challenging his people to observe the Gentile believers and see that they did indeed keep the Torah better than many Jews even without formal instruction as evidence of the work of God's Spirit. (Remember that the Jews had been expelled from Rome for a time, leaving the Gentile believers without those from whom they would normally learn the Scriptures from; Acts 18:2.) Where under the Mosaic covenant, men were to carry out the external actions and internalize them, under the New Covenant YHVH puts His Spirit in us to convert us internally first, and then this internal conversion comes out in our actions.

Does this mean, as some claim, that the external rites like Passover, tzitzit, etc. have no value? Hardly. Do we claim that because we have received Yeshua in the Spirit that the Lord's Supper and baptism have no more meaning? "But those aren't rituals, they're sacraments!" Potayto, potahto. A sacrament is just "[a] rite believed to be a means of or visible form of grace" (Dictionary.com), and the Catholic Encyclopedia agrees that the rituals of the Torah were "the sacraments of the Mosaic Law." Trying to avoid the fact that even those who most strenuously object to any form of the "ceremonial law" still believe that rituals have their place in the New Covenant by playing word games is a losing proposition. (See Why the New Covenant Doesn't Do Away With the Torah for more on this subject.)

So then, what does this mean for us today?

First, it means that we Gentile Christians can no longer use Romans 2-3 to support Replacement Theology, since Sha'ul is addressing the subject of what makes a Jew, not whether a Gentile should be considered a "true" Jew.

Secondly, we Gentile Messianics should stop fixating on trying to prove that we're "really" Jewish, by bloodline or otherwise. Instead, we should concentrate on showing the evidence of the Spirit in our lives by keeping Torah in such a way that a Sha'ul could point to us for an example. That most especially means loving our Jewish neighbors, whether or not they accept us.

Next: Is the Church an Enemy of the Gospel For its Own Sake?

Shalom

The Ekklesia and Israel

Recently, I've been shocked by the level of anti-Semitic rhetoric that arose on a Christian thread on FR (since pulled by the mods). One poster, whom I have considered in the past and would like to continue to consider a close friend, went so far as to call the Jews "God-hating" and to say that it was illegal to consider the present-day nation of Israel and Jewish people to be "true" Israel, as that title had supposedly been claimed by the Church.

Just a few days later, during our Beit Midrash ("House of Study," i.e., a Bible study), a dear friend in the congregation got upset when I re-stated my belief that simply following Yeshua HaMashiach and keeping Torah did not by default make those of us born to a Gentile heritage (most definitely including myself) Jews.

Let me deal with both of these errors.

First, it is significant that nowhere in the New Testament, the B'rit Chadasha, does any Apostle call the Gentile believers and members of the Ekklesia, the Church, Jews. There are numerous passages where the Ekklesia as a whole is described in the terms that God used originally of Israel (cf. 1 Pt. 2:9 and Exo. 19:6), and certainly it is the centerpiece of Sha'ul's (Paul's) teaching that Jew and Gentile had been made into one Body, one Congregation, with no division between them, by the blood and Spirit of the Messiah. Many quote the following passage:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Messiah Yeshua.
(Galatians 3:28)

Amen! However, many miss the real point of this passage, claiming that this means that Jewish believers should no longer be distinctly Jewish. Oh really? So, men and women should not longer recognize the differences in the sexes? Homosexuality is now okay, since there is neither male nor female? Of course not! So clearly we recognize distinctions between each of the above groups--Sha'ul's point is that all who are in the Messiah, regardless of the circumstances of their birth or economic status, are equally God's children by virtue of their faith. Elsewhere, he writes,

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
(Romans 3:1-2)

What does he mean by that? I think he means that the Jews were the original recipients of the sacred Scriptures in their own language, idioms, and culture, and therefore have a natural advantage in understanding them. Certainly, we in the Messianic movement have found that when we read the NT with "Jewish eyes," as it were, we find troublesome passages opening up to us. Certainly, a Gentile can learn to do so as well, but we have to make a cultural transition.

But even acknowledging this distinction and advantage, Sha'ul continually championed the rights of Gentile believers to full inclusion into the community without becoming circumcised--that is, formally giving up their Gentile nationality and heritage and becoming fully Jewish. "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God" (1 Co. 7:19), he writes. That is, Jewishness is nothing and Gentileness is nothing--it's whether a person keeps the commandments of God that counts.

This is where I grow frustrated with many Messianics. Messianic Jews--that is, those born and raised Jewish--sometimes look at those of us who are Gentile as outsiders. Now, I understand that many Messianic Jewish synagogues exclude Gentiles to create an atmosphere where non-believing Jews can feel at home. I think that they are wrong to return to the error of the first century which the Apostles struggled to overcome, but I understand their reasoning. By the same token, if Rav Sha'ul writes that keeping the commandments of God is for Jew and Gentile alike, by what reasoning do Jewish believers exclude Gentile believers from Torah-observant congregations? "You have thousands upon thousands of Sunday churches," they say. "Let us have our few synagogues." Sure, but what if I am convicted that I should keep the command of God to observe Shabbat? Should I be excluded from doing so for the sake of putting back up the middle wall of partition between us?

Others of my Messianic brethren, often reacting to the above, become obsessed with proving that they really are Jewish. They delve into genealogies, trying to find some trace of Jewish blood. "I must be Jewish," they say. "Why else would I be drawn to worship in a Jewish manner and keep the Torah?"

Gee, I dunno. Maybe because you are immersed into a Jewish Messiah and grafted into the root of Israel?

I make no pretensions to being Jewish. I was born to Gentile parents. As far as I can tell, neither side of the family has any significant Jewish blood. But I will still keep Torah, because I am saved, and I want to be like my (Jewish) Savior in every way. And if the Apostles were willing to undergo persecution for the sake of the Gentiles, and called them Gentiles without insult, who am I to deny my Gentile heritage?

I am a man of two heritages. I am an American, a descendant of John and Priscilla Alden, who came over on the Mayflower so that they could worship God according to their understanding of the Scriptures. My ancestors based Thanksgiving on Sukkot. They fought a war of independence against Britain. I come from a long line of teachers. But I am also grafted into Israel. Their history is my history, their King my King, their God my God. And though they do not yet see me the same way, I regard all Jews as my brothers and sisters by my adoption by the Messiah of Israel.

And therefore I will defend their honor and persons against all attackers as if that were my own--even when, especially when those attacking them do so from under the Christian banner.

In my next article, I'll deal with some of the objections raised by those who want to claim that the Church is not "the true Israel." Until then,

Shalom.

Next: The True Jew

The Trouble with Postmill

So far, I've not said much about my prophetic interpretations on this blog, in part because of my impending debate with Don Preston--I didn't want to be perceived as having the debate before the debate. However, since he's actually requested that I post some of my understanding of eschatology on my blog, I'm happy to do so.

Just because it came up on an FR thread, I figure that I'll start by expounding on the major error of postmillennialism.

Postmill has been described as an "optimistic amillennialism." It agrees with the basic premise of amill that we are currently within the millennium, which is not to be understood as a literal 1000 year period of time, and is usually preterist--that is, believes that the Olivet Discourse, the Revelation, and the related prophecies all had their sole and final fulfillments in the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. I'll come back at a later date and explain why preterists aren't entirely wrong--they're just incomplete in their understanding.

For today, I'd like to touch on the "optimism" of postmill. One of the frequent arguments that postmill's adherants will throw at us premill types is that we deny the power of God to redeem the world, since we believe in the final victory of evil over good before Yeshua returns to set things right. For example, one poster on FR complained, "Premillennial eschatology tells us that those believers won't accomplish jack in the way of impacting, let alone redeeming, the culture around them."

Actually, it's history that tells us that, not eschatology.

There has never been such a thing as a permanently redeemed culture. Whenever Christianity (and Israel before it) has had one of those truly great and Godly generations, it has been because they came out of a period of darkness and testing which purified them, as fire purifies gold.

Because that generation walks with the Lord, the Lord blesses them, resulting in great material wealth. However, as the first generation that went through the time of testing passes, they are succeeded by a generation to whom church is just something you do . . . just because. They become Laodicean.

Then follows the cynical and rebelleous generation, to whom, "Don't ask questions, just have faith," the mantra of the "just because" generation, is sheer foolishness. The culture changes from Christian to post-Christian, and then to anti-Christian. In doing so, it looses its blessings. It also becomes decadent and dependant--which leads it back into darkness and bondage.

John Adams understood this cycle. He said, "Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other." We're finding that to be true in our own generation.

This is a cycle which no democracy has ever managed to escape. What, then, about a monarchy or dictatorship? The problem they run into is the need to enforce "Christian" standards by increasingly draconian laws. Conscienceless men can be ruled by fear, and in some cultures by honor and shame, but they cannot be ruled with a light hand. Bondage is still bondage, even if the mortal king proclaims himself a Christian.

These periods of darkness and bondage are actually important to the overall spiritual health of the Church. Indeed, I believe that Christian political rulership does not so much "redeem" as it does create more tares among the wheat. When the Church is in political power, those who are attracted to political power rather than the Messiah are attracted to the Church. Only when it is unpopular to be a Christian, when we are persecuted and downtrodden, when there is a real cost to be counted for living a holy life set apart for Yeshua do the tares flee the sanctuary and the wheat grow to fruition. And only when the Church is full of wheat bearing the fruits of repentence do we have the impact on our culture for the bondage to be broken and the cycle to begin anew.

There's an old story, probably apocryphal, which illustrates this point: Back in the Soviet days, a small home church in Russia was suddenly invaded by gun-wielding men. "We are the KGB," they said. "Anyone who doesn't want to die for their faith, get out now!" Maybe 2/3rds of those there sheepishly duck out. After they're gone, the KGB men sit and say, "Now that we know who the real Christians are, we want to learn about God."

I believe that the End Times scenario of persecution is not truly a victory for the Adversary, however much carnal eyes might see it to be so; rather, it is the last purification of the whole Body of the Messiah, the separation and bundling up of the tares from the wheat, "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Yeshua HaMashiach" (1 Pt. 1:7).

The flaw with postmill is that it refuses to acknowledge this cycle, a cycle which has been and will be in motion for as long as flawed human governments rule the world system. Premill supposes that somehow, we can create a visible Kingdom of Heaven on the earth--and if that's not working, if we find ourselves on the downslide part of the cycle, well that must be because of those darn Dispensationalists with their defeatist attitudes! Premill, in contrast, recognizes the cycle of history, and it recognizes that only when the Messiah King Yeshua sits on David's throne in Jerusalem and rules bodily over the whole earth "with a rod of iron" will that cycle be broken--and even then, there will be one last grating turn of the rusty wheel at the end of the Millennium before all is made new.

Premill is not defeatist because it recognizes the truth of history, or because it recognizes the truth of Scripture, that the whole world will go into a brief period of bondage brought on by spiritual darkness before the Lord Comes. It is simply realistic and Biblical.

There will be true shalom only when the Shar Shalom, the Prince of Peace, sits on David's throne.

Shalom.

When God Closes a Door

Yeah, yeah, He opens a window. We all know the saying. The problem is that it makes God's actions sound amazingly trite and arbitrary, doesn't it?

Right now, Beth HaMashiach is facing a closed door. For the last couple of years, we've rented space from Eastgate Fellowship, who extended the right hand of fellowship to us. Unfortunately, Eastgate has disbanded following the loss of several prominent members and the retirement of her pastor, and is selling the property. We had hoped that the new congregation, whoever they were, would be amenable to us continuing to rent. Without going into details, they are not.

Sometimes its hard not to be angry or bitter. On an intellectual level, you know that you're just renting, but you still start to feel like a place is your home, and it feels like someone is trying to steal it from you.

But God is gracious. Attempts to find another church to rent from fell through, but we've found a storefront for rent just up the road from where we were. The location is prominent, visible from a major highway. The square footage of the storefront is just about perfect for our needs. It's a chance to have our own space to set up the way we want it--the teens are already drooling over the chance to decorate their room just the way they want it (within reason, of course). We can make this a true Messianic synagogue--we've even got the sanctuary oriented towards Jerusalem. Not renting from a Sunday church both opens up the possiblity of having more services and also removes a barrier to our Jewish brothers and sisters in checking us out, since many are wary of entering a church.

There are, of course, a lot of expenses involved, but our Father is providing the funds, as He has promised: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (your needs) will be added unto you . . ." There are going to be sacrifices in both time and money for everyone, but since when has anything worthwhile not required sacrifice?

When David found himself on the run from Saul, he was devastated--just read a few of the Psalms he wrote. His life seemed to be over. He was even reduced to acting like a madman so that the Philistines wouldn't kill him. But because he was on the run, and because the only skill he had to sell was his skill with the sword, he learned the art of war. When soldiers who were unwilling to live any longer under Saul's rule came to him with their families, he learned to lead a people. Had he not been forced from his comfortable life as a shepherd, or from his equally comfortable position as the court harpist, he would never have learned the skills he needed to be the king that Israel needed him to be.

Or take Daniel. He was kidnapped from Jerusalem as a teen or young man, made a eunich in the service of Babylon (which, by the way, precluded him ever being able to worship in the Temple again), and forced to learn the pagan rites of his new masters. But if he had not been, then he would not have risen to his high position in Babylon and the Medo-Persian empires so as to be able to see to the needs of his people, and its quite likely that Cyrus would not have let the Jews go at their appointed time (Josephus records that it was Daniel who presented Cyrus with the scroll of Isaiah which contained the command from God to let His people return to Jerusalem).

Yeshua Himself knew about closed doors. He moved to Galilee after He was rejected by His hometown of Nazareth. Ultimately, the rejection by His people opened the way for Him to be made a sacrifice on their behalf. That same closed door opened the way for the Gospel to go to the Gentiles.

It's hard to face a closed door, especially when God doesn't immediately show us the open one. Sometimes we simply have to wait and trust in His promises--and it is in those hours of exile that we learn the most about true faith.

Shalom.