Single-handed Theology: Master of Kitchen Studies

Newborns and toddlers (especially in combination!) really do hinder the study of theology in the traditional academic fashion. What mother of preschool children has time to read scholastic works, let alone make cohesive comments on the internet about them? Sometimes I get a little depressed thinking about it. I started a great commentary on Revelation back in the spring. . . the bookmark is still there in chapter two. My eschatological ponderings have wandered off into an apocalyptic explosion of diapers and dishes. Most of the books I've been reading are short on words, big on pictures. (Wait, maybe I'm on to something . . . an illustrated theology series perhaps??)

All of that to say, I must remind myself that theology, the study of God, is not limited to academia. God is the same God in the kitchen and the classroom. And if what is said in the classroom cannot apply to the kitchen, then maybe it's not worth saying? Don't get my wrong. I love theology. But I love God more. And I'm learning to pray like never before, because it is more important to be connected with Him than to thoughts about Him. I'm learning to look for him, especially in the unlikely places. (I'd love to hear Luther or Barth or NT Wright discuss theology after a day at home with the kids, wouldn't you?) This is a different kind of degree I'm pursuing, and that's ok.

And when the fourth consecutive reading of The Little Engine That Could is complete, and the children are both (miraculously!) asleep, then maybe I'll dig out that commentary again . . . Who am I kidding? I'm having a nap!

~lg

A bit of Barth

Dogmatics in Outline

Karl Barth

Chapter 20: The Coming of Jesus Christ the Judge

-          Barth spends a lot of time talking about his concept of time

-          NT talk about the coming of the Son of man, ie. coming on the clouds of heaven, lightning – “metaphors of ultimate realities” (133)

-          Good quotes:

o   "The miracle for both the Church and the world is that “this goal of hope does not stand somewhere and we must laboriously build the road to it . . . Not that we must come; it is He who comes” (133).

§  We cannot create the circumstances which will lead to Christ’s coming. It is all His doing, His coming.

o   "Jesus Christ’s return to judge the quick and the dead is tidings of joy. ‘With head erect,’ the Christian, the Church may and ought to confront this future. For He that comes is the same who previously offered Himself to the judgment of God” (134).

§  To ponder: Knowing that Christ has already taken on the judgment of God in His first coming, what will the nature of His judgment be at His second?

§  It is the same God – this should give us confidence and comfort.

~lg

"Why Every Calvinist Should be a Premillennialist"

Article: "Why Every Calvinist Should Be a Premillennialist"
John MacArthur

(from a talk given in March 2007)

John MacArthur

-          A Baptist and a 5-point Calvinist

-          Fundamentalist, inerrancy of Scripture

-          In dispensationalist camp, although with some differing views

-          Against Roman Catholics, against ecumenism

-          Cessationist

Thoughts:

·         An accurate understanding of the future of Israel is “the cornerstone of biblical eschatology”

o   “The key to eschatology is Judeo-centrism which alone provides the cohesive base for the integration of the various features of biblical prophecy.”

·         Abrahamic and Davidic covenants are yet unfulfilled for Israel

·         God’s promises to Israel are “unilateral unconditional sovereign gracious promises to Israel.” “[T]hey will be fulfilled by an elect people in the future whom God will enable to repent and believe.”

·         The issue is the theology of sovereign election

·         Good points here:

o   “To believe that the church somehow has earned the promises given to Israel because we pulled it off on our own and Israel did not, that kind of thinking is foreign to our understanding of sovereign grace. Do we fail to grasp that we as a church exist only by divine sovereign grace and that we are no more able to believe than the Jews were able on their own to believe?”

o   “The New Covenant is not a reward for their faithfulness, it is given in spite of their unfaithfulness.” 

~lg

Dear Dispensationalism, We Need a Break

I have come to the end of Holdcroft’s Eschatology, glory be! I am so glad to have that out of the way, but I think it was necessary to push through to the bitter end, just so I could say I gave it a fair chance.

Unfortunately, this relationship with dispensationalism has seemed doomed almost since the beginning, at least since I started to evaluate where we stood with each other. It's funny what happens when you actually start talking...

Chapters 1-3 are foundational to Holdcroft’s presentation of futurism, and to the way he interprets Scripture. Chapters 4-14 detail the different “events” and “periods” of the end of the world, from the Rapture to the Final State.

By the end of Chapter 3, I was already in disagreement with his theology and hermeneutics. My disagreements with the rest of the book were just detail. 

So, why can’t I accept dispensationalism? Though hermeneutics does come in to play somewhat, what it boils down to is Christology. The Christology of dispensationalism is insufficient. It limits Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection to a certain period of time on earth.

Since Holdcroft does not actually interact with Christology, or any other streams of theology for that matter, it was through his understanding of the identities of Israel and the Church that I discovered just how “low” his view of Christ is. Much of dispensationalism rests on the distinction between the Church and Israel.

The Argument

If you’re the nosy type, feel free to listen in on this argument we had in the margins of Chapter 2: Eschatological Identities.

Page 20

Holdcroft:

“The church and national Israel are fundamentally different bodies, with each existing under its own covenant.” Now he says that God extends Christ’s new covenant to all humankind, but “to the Jews not under the new covenant, the old Abrahamic covenant still stands.”

Me:

I disagree. Didn’t Jesus fulfill the Abrahamic covenant? Wasn’t the whole point of the Abrahamic covenant that through Abraham’s seed (Jesus), all the nations of the earth would be blessed? How is the Abrahamic covenant still in effect?

The Abrahamic covenant was about land, offspring and blessing. All of which I see fulfilled in Christ. God promised place for his people to dwell, so that He could come and dwell in their midst, and through them that all peoples on earth would be blessed.

Well, the land, and specifically the temple, all point to Jesus. Jesus is the new temple, the location of God’s presence is now through Him. So why does God need a particular parcel of land anymore where He can show up?

The offspring were meant to be a holy people, set apart for a purpose to show God’s glory. We all know they fell short, but Jesus fulfilled everything that Israel as a nation failed to do. Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel, He is Israel as Israel was meant to live. Yes, the Jewish people are important because it is through them that Jesus came, and through them and their history that we understand who God is and what Jesus did. But the purpose of offspring was not just to have lots of kids…the goal of the offspring was Jesus!

And blessing. Again, fulfilled in Jesus. He is the One through whom all peoples can be blessed.

Of course, the OT hints at all of this, but only after Jesus came do we see what it was all really about, that it was really about Him. So I would say the Abrahamic covenant lives on in Christ, but it doesn’t run in a parallel track to the New Covenant. It doesn’t exist in the same way it did before Christ. It doesn’t exist now apart from Christ.

Holdcroft:

“Since God provided Israel with the Old Testament (or covenant), and the church with the New Testament (or covenant), these actions provide ample precedent to expect that God will supply the people of the millennial kingdom with their own testament-covenant.”

Me:

I guess this is basic dispensationalism. God acts in different ways in different dispensations, holding people of different times (and in the case of Israel, ethnicities), to different standards in their dealings with Him. But to me, this demotes what Jesus came and accomplished to just another method in a long line of methods. His is just one of many covenants. I would argue that He is THE covenant, all the OT covenants were really about Him, and He fulfilled them, He supersedes all other covenants. There will be no new covenants after Him, because God has ultimately and decisively revealed Himself and the way we are to relate to Him in Christ. Otherwise, what’s the point of Jesus?

Are you saying that the Old Testament doesn’t apply to the church? And the New Testament doesn’t apply to Israel? That seems crazy. And I really don’t see how this is “ample precedent” for God dropping another new covenant during the millennial kingdom.

Page 25

Holdcroft:

“Scripture distinctively portrays Israel as a perpetually enduring nation of people uniquely favored of God with the promise of land as an everlasting possession.”

Me:

I think these promises were redefined in Christ. I think He is the ultimate goal, not a means to another goal, ie. a nation in a strip of land.

Page 26

Holdcroft:

“The chosen descendants of Abraham who comprise national Israel are the objects of a sovereign God’s special favor in His unconditionally guaranteed covenanted promises. The effects of these promises continue into the realm of the everlasting, and they include a land, a king, a restored and regenerated people, and even after the horrors of tribulation, a guaranteed count of survivors of the flesh and blood offspring of Abraham.”

Me:

Again, I think these promises are redefined in Christ. He is the promised King. There is no need now or in the future for an ethnic Jew to be sitting on some throne as a king.

Page 28-29

Holdcroft:

These Abrahamic blessings are still awaiting fulfillment, and the time of their fulfillment will be the millennium.

“In that day [in the millennial kingdom] when national Israel’s survivors accept their Messiah, they will enjoy all the political and earthly advantages of the Abrahamic covenant. “

Me:

So Jesus wasn’t the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant? Isn’t this going backwards?

Is the literal futurist Millennium invented as a necessity because national Israel hasn’t yet experienced these “political and earthly advantages”? Futurists see these promises as unfulfilled. But what if God fulfills His promises in a radically different – and better! – way, unimaginable until God revealed Himself in Jesus?

Holdcroft:

The new covenant predicted by Jeremiah in 31:31-34 is Israel’s millennial covenant. “Jeremiah does not speak of the new covenant that Christ provided for His church. The two “new” covenants should not be confused.”

Me:

Really? 2 New Covenants? Is one better than the other? Is Jesus not the plan for the Jews?

Holdcroft:

“This covenant will provide the spiritual basis for the transformation of flesh and blood Israelites into penitent and devout millennial citizens, and prepare them for eternity in the new Jerusalem.”

Me:

Oooh, so the millennium is like a 1000 year purgatory for the Jews, so they can prove they are worthy of entering the new Jerusalem at the end of it all!

Holdcroft:

“Israel’s future new covenant is quite different from the Christian’s present new covenant.”

Me:

AAaaaggghhhh….. I disagree! Are we – Jews and Gentiles – not joined in one family? Does not all the true seed of Abraham have a common destiny in Christ? Hasn’t God “planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40)?

Page 32

Holdcroft:

“The unbelieving Jew still retains God’s promise of an earthly land for him or his descendants.”

Me:

But why? What is the point of this earthly land?

Page 37

Holdcroft:

Speaking of Jesus’ time on earth: “God’s desire for the Jews of that day was that they enthrone the incarnate Christ as their Messiah, but they failed to do so. […] Since what Jesus offered was rejected, the fulfillment of God’s plan now awaits the kingdom age – the millennium.”

“The Jews of Jesus’ day could have directly entered into the kingdom, just as in Moses’ time the people could have entered the promised land a few days after leaving Egypt.”

Me:

You have got to be kidding me. This misses the whole point of the incarnation, the cross. It was never God’s intent for Jesus to be installed as a political Messiah over national Israel in 33 AD, for the establishment of an earthly kingdom. This is horrible Christology!!!!!!!!!!!!

You’ve probably heard enough by now. My poor margins are a mess. I finished this chapter extremely frustrated. The rest of the book, and the rest of Holdcroft’s interpretation of Scripture, are all tied in to this particular form of dispensationalism. 

Conclusion

I tried to give futurism a fair chance, I really did. I tried to see the theological logic of dispensationalism, to wrap my head around this particular way of reading the Bible. But at the end of it all, I simply cannot accept the theological, and especially Christological, premises of dispensationalism, at least the way Holdcroft presents them.

I guess dispensationalism and I have been in one of those relationships that existed by default more than anything else. But now I see how different we really are. Irreconcilably so, perhaps. We need a break. I need some space, to clear my head, to think, to see what other fish are out there in the eschatological sea.

It’s not you, it’s me. No, actually, I think it is you.

~

So where do I go from here?

-          I need to explore different ways of understanding the distinction and connection between Israel and the Church.

-          I need to explore different ways of understanding how the biblical covenants are related to each other. (Covenant Theology?)

-          I would like to do some study on Romans 9-11, a section I have always found tricky. I want to check out several commentaries, perhaps from different traditions/perspectives.

-          I would also like to hear some other dispensationalist voices, to see how they differ from or conform to Holdcroft’s view. I am still open to someone explaining dispensationalism in a way that has theological integrity, especially when it comes to Christology.

~lg

The Mid-Point of the Tribulation

 

I think there should be some special end time judgment reserved for people who write boring theology.

I am halfway through Holdcroft’s Eschatologly: A Futurist View, my own tribulation, and I am waiting for someone to make a deal that will make the rest of the book go by a lot quicker. In a nutshell, this book is boring. It is dry, uninteresting, and in places mind-numbing with its bullet points and lists of random Scripture references. I wish, for futurism’s sake, that Holdcroft had made this a little more engaging. I’m trying not to let the medium destroy the message.

It also lacks any connection to systematic theology as a whole, and that is a significant weakness in my opinion.

As soon as I got into the book, I realized I was coming at things from quite a different viewpoint. In fact, the first few chapters made me quite upset! The margins are filled with a pencil debate against Holdcroft. He lays a foundation for futurism, and dispensationalism in particular, that I simply cannot agree with on a number of theological grounds.

I think I will lay out my particular problems in another post, after I’ve considered the book as a whole. And in the meantime, I’m going to try and slog through the rest of it as quickly as I can, so I can move on to other, more interesting reads!

Does anyone know of a good book that outlines and defends a dispensationalist view of eschatology? I would like to read the best of this position and really give it a chance, but as of right now I am ready to cast it into the lake of fire (well, at least Holdcroft’s version). I have Dwight J. Pentecost’s Things to Come, which apparently was the Bible College textbook before Holdcroft. It is a thicker book. I’m wary of committing myself to it if it’s just more of the same. 

~lg

The End is Just the Beginning

As I begin my study, I am reminded that no one strain of theology can be considered on its own, independent of other “ologies.” As soon as you get into one subject, you realize there are other subjects that must be brought into the conversation.

A good eschatology is necessarily, and inevitably, shaped by other fields of biblical/theological study. There are a few that are already jumping to mind as I start to think and read:

Hermeneutics

·         How one understands and interprets the Bible as a whole, and certain prophetic passages in particular, is a HUGE part of one’s eschatological framework. What is strictly literal and what is symbolic and how does one decide one over the other? Is there such a thing as double fulfillment? Prophetic telescoping?

Christology

·         What Christ accomplished the first time, and what he has left to accomplish in His second coming also plays a part. Also, Christology informs how the Old Testament is read.

Israel

·         How many of God’s promises to the nation of Israel were fulfilled in Jesus? Do we reinterpret certain passages in the OT with Jesus/the church in mind? What is the distinction between Israel and the church? Does God still have a specific/unique plan for the nation of Israel?

So, though I may be beginning on the path of eschatology, I know I will be going down many a side trail in pursuit of these other factors. It’s a big theological world out there. . .let's hope I don't get lost!

~lg