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The False Prophets Cause the Christian Community To Make Israel the Center of A Dialectic Conflict
Posted : 28 Nov, 2013 07:17 AM
The False Prophets Cause the Christian Community To Make Israel the Center of A Dialectic Conflict
The identity of Israel and the identity of the Christian believer in Israel or in the "church" has been made into the basic division and dialectic opposition in the Christian community. There are two false teachings about Israel, just as the second beast of Revelation 13: 11-18 is said in verse 11 to have two horns. And this second beast looks like a lamb but speaks as a dragon, meaning he is deceptive. He fulfills the role of the False Prophet in Matthew 24: 5, "For many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many." The False Prophet, is called that in Matthew 24: 11, in II Peter 2: 1-3, I John 4: 1, and Revelation 16: 13. He is also
seen metaphorically, by way of the power of "his" mouth in Revelation 9: 16-19, and his work is seen metaphorically in Revelation 12: 14-17. The False Prophet, representing many False Prophets, is thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation 19: 20.
Revelation 16: 12-14 says "And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."
Here the metaphors describe something happening in the supernatural, and at the same time these supernatural things involve the flesh and blood False Prophet, who again represents the many false prophets of Matthew 24: 11.
In Revelation 16: 13 unclean spirits come out of the mouth of the false prophet. What the False Prophets teach is from the unclean spirits. In Revelation 12: 15 the serpent casts out of his mouth water as a flood after the metaphoric woman. Then, in Revelation 9: 18 the third part of men are "killed" by what comes out of the mouths of the huge army of horsemen of Revelation 9: 16.
What the False Prophets speak, what they teach, which is the doctrines they teach, in all three texts of Revelation, is the deception mentioned three times in Matthew 24. And the heresies taught by the false prophets in II Peter 2: 1 are said to be damnable. This is a spiritual damnation, or destruction, not a literal destruction of the physical human body. And the "killing" of the third part of men in Revelation 9: 18 is not a literal putting to death of a third of mankind as the NIV has it.
"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. II Peter 2: 1
The False Prophet in Revelation 13: 12 causes people to worship the head of the first beast whose deadly wound was healed - in 1948 - and this head of the first beast is described in Revelation 13: 3. This first beast, which has more than one head, is like the leopard, bear and lion, harking back to three of the four empires in Daniel 7: 4-8. The Little Horn in Daniel 7: 8 is the same power or nation as the head of the beast in Revelation 13: 3 whose deadly wound was healed in 1948, having been received in 70 A.D.
Honoring all physical Israel is one side of the dialectic conflict of our time, which is the end time. The other side of the dialectic is that the capital C "Church" replaced physical Israel. And this arm of the dialectic holds that the little c "church," from ekklesia, a meeting, or assembly of those in Sion, became the Big Church, which is now the Body of Christ, the elect, implying, sort of, that joining the Big capital C Church will save you. And in a sense, the Protestant maintaining of the theology that the capital C Church is now the Body of Christ, is the synthesis, or compromise, of the two polarities, that Christians must honor all physical Israel versus the theology saying the Church replaced Israel and Israel is no more. In fact, Israel remains, but it is now a born again Israel and has been for two thousand years. But the conflict between putting all physical Israel in a number one role versus the Church replacing physical Israel is still the central focus of contemporary Christian theology.
Here is a major origin of one side of this dialectic:
The teachings of John Darby, C.I. Scofield, Lewis S. Chafer and many others that God now has two peoples, all physical Israel and the church is a tradition of men since the teaching has been around since the early and middle 19th century. This tradition of men saying God now has two peoples, not one, is the opposite of what Christ says in John 10: 16, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." Paul teaches in Romans 12: 5, "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another."
Dispensationalism starts from the assumptions or postulates that God now has two peoples, all physical Israel and the capital C Church, and that scripture must be interpreted literally.
The doctrines of Darby, Scofield, Chafer and others were not the only departures from sound doctrine. There were several 19th century cults, all of which taught some form of error or apostasy.
Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), Ellen G. White (1827-1915), Edward Irving (1792 �1834), John Darby (1800 -1882), Charles T. Russell (1852-1916), and C.I. Scofield (1843 -1921) were some of the major false
prophets of the 19th century who influenced Christians. The most
influential 19th century false doctrines, or cults, were the Jehovah's
Witnesses, the Mormons, Christian Science and Dispensationalism.. Dispensationalism
became the most popular cult and took over, by the mid 20th century, the
majority of protestant denominations.
John Darby said that the "Church has sought to settle itself here, but it has no place on the earth... [Though] making a most constructive parenthesis, it forms no part of the regular order of God's earthly plans, but is merely an interruption of them to give a fuller character and meaning to them..."
John. N. Darby, 'The Character of Office in The Present Dispensation'
Collected Writings., Eccl. I, Vol. I, p. 94.
"Them" are all physical Israel. The church, for Darby exists to "give
fuller character and meaning to all physical Israel." Darby thought that the purpose of the
Christian church, the ekklesia as a meeting, assembly or congregation
of Israel reborn in Christ as a spiritual house (I Peter 2:5-9), the Israel of God, made into The Body of Christ like the Catholic capital C Church, was to honor all physical Israel.
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.
In his book, Dispensationalism (1966), Charles Ryrie says "The
essence of Dispensationalism, then, is the distinction between Israel
and the church." (page 3, "Dispensationalism")
"The nature of the church is a crucial point of difference between
classic, or normative, dispensationalism and other doctrinal systems.
Indeed, ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church, is the touchstone
of dispensationalism (and also of pretribulationalism)."
(page 123, Charles Ryrie Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody Press,
[1966], 1995)
The site http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/es...william-e-cox/
says "Dispensationalists boast of literal interpretation of
Scripture, and cast aspersions at those who "spiritualize" some
passages of the Bible. Charles C. Ryrie, President of The Philadelphia
College of the Bible, says: (Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 114, July, 1957,
p. 254), only dispensationalism provides the key to consistent
literalism."
On http://www.realapologetics.org/blog/2010/06/15/ci-scofield-the-meaning-of-literal-and-the-birth-of-hyper-dispensationalism/
Jamin Hubner says about dispensationalism that: "Despite the revisions and
�improvements,� one thing hadn�t changed: it was still a system based
on man-made rules of Bible interpretation. It still made a sharp
distinction between Israel and the Church. And it still stressed a
literalist hermeneutic. These presuppositions didn�t come without
problems."
Then Hubner explains that "Examples of this literalism in Scofield�s
theology can be found in his following words:
"Israel is earthly, the church heavenly. One is natural the other
spiritual. What pertains to Israel is to be interpreted in
literalistic fashion. But what pertains to the church need not be so
interpreted.
[Prophecy is] the ground of absolute literalness.
Jerusalem is always Jerusalem, Israel always Israel, Zion always
Zion�Prophecies may never be spiritualized, but are always literal."
If dispensationalists can get people to believe that the prophecies on the work of
the False Prophets that are written in the language of metaphor are all literal, and do not describe spiritual
things, then they believe they have severely diminished the teachings on how the False Prophets bring the damnable heresies of II Peter 2: 1. Yet II Peter 2: 1, on the damnable heresies, still strands as absolute truth and fact. Claiming the metaphors in Revelation 9: 16-18, Revelation 16: 13, and Revelation 12: 15 are literal does not do away with II Peter 2: 1.
So, dispensationalism teaches as postponement theology that God was not able to save all physical Israel at his first appearing on earth, but will finish that task sometime in the future, perhaps during the tribulation. This is a teaching that is part of the arm of the dialectic saying that all physical Israel now remain the chosen people of God because of their flesh, their literal descent from Abraham.
As separation theology, dispensationalism emphasizes a distinction even between Jews who are born again in Christ and become Christians and those Christians who were formerly Gentiles.
Just as dispenationalism shows, it is another Gospel and has another Jesus (II Corinthians 11: 4, Galatians 1: 6-9) by contradicting John 10: 16 and Romans 12: 5 on there being only one Body of Christ, so it goes against what Paul teaches in Galatians 3: 3-29. Without quoting the entire text, verses 16 and 28-29 can be quoted to show the gist of Paul's teaching: "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ............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. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
Entry into the Kingdom of God, which is within us, is not by the flesh, not by having the fleshly DNA from Abraham, but by being Abraham's spiritual seed, which is the seed of God.
But dispensationmalism contradicts what Paul says in Galatians 3, and teaches that the Jewish people after the flesh have an identity separate from the identity know as Christian based only on their flesh and that after the New Testament era when God redeems the Christians he will then return to finish the work he was unable to do at the Cross and will then save "all Israel" of Romans 11: 26. In fact, what Paul is doing in Romans 11: 26 is defining Israel the elect - all saved people - as the Israel of God (Galatians 6: 16) of the New Covenant.
The opposing arm of the now dominating dialectic would say that the Christian capital C Church replaced physical Israel. The dialectic is always two opposing factions, the two divisions of the kingdom of the Dragon, because his kingdom is divided. "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? " Luke 11: 17-18
The Dragon operates on the basis of disagreement, resulting in quarreling all the time between two or more divided Christian factions, as goes on in most Christian Internet forums.. Dispensational Theology and Replacement Theology are the opposite positions of the dialectic, the thesis and the antithesis. The synthesis is in the middle where the dragon acts is the facilitator. The "facilitator" is a term used to describe the leader of encounter groups of the sixties and seventies, who was trained in the use of the dialectic procedure to change attitudes, beliefs and behavior using the created cohesiveness of small groups.
You might say, but dispensationalism has taken over almost all Christian denominations, so that now there is not much of a second pole of the dialectic saying that the Church replaced physical Israel. But in the threshing floor of Jeremiah 51: 33, which is the tribulation period, there is an increasing division as those holding to the position that all physical Israel now remain God's chosen people and the now few who agree with John 10: 16 and Galatians 3, and teach that both polar opposites are wrong. The Church did not replace physical Israel, and physical Israel does not now exist as a Body of Christ. And the Church is not defined as the Body of Christ, but is just a meeting or assembly of some of that Body, and some who are not of the elect. As Jeremiah 18: 1-6 shows God transformed physical
Israel into another Israel, but its still Israel, just as Sion is still Zion in name but Sion refers to that spiritual house of I Peter 2: 5-9.
II Kings 21: 13 and Isaiah 29: 16 are prophecies which point to Jeremiah 18: 1-6 and the transformation of Israel. Israel was, is, and always will be Gods chosen people. But physical Israel was transformed into spiritual Israel at the Cross and at the Day of Pentecost. Christ is in spiritual Israel, not in physical Israel, as Matthew 23: 38 says "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."
But spiritual Israel, calling itself the capital C Church, after the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 became the Babylon of Revelation 17 and 18, and Christ is not in Babylon. Revelation 18: 23 says the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride are heard no more at all - in Babylon. Revelation 18: 4 calls God's own people out of Babylon.
The strong delusion in II Thessalonians 2: 10-12, or working of error,which God sends as judgment for being in doctrines that are not of Christ leads to the loss of the heritage as the Israel of God. Its hard to come out
of that strong delusion, but the implication of the threshing floor of Jeremiah 51: 33, Daniel 11: 33, and Revelation 11: 11 is that a few do come out of the strong delusion and stand with the 144,000 with the Lamb on Mount Sion (Revelation 14: 1).
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