REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY
I found this comment in a Jewish periodical. "Many Christians claim the New Testament is like the second floor of a two-story building, built on the Hebrew Tanakh [Bible]. There is only one problem: the original blueprint does not include any second floor. It doesn't even allow a second floor to be built." This is because Moses wrote, "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you." Deut. 4:2 (ESV)
The comment comes from a former Lutheran minister from Finland who recently embraced Judaism. He was reacting against a theory common among Lutherans and some other Christians who imagine that the Church replaces Israel in the plan of God.
This is another case where wrong beliefs about prophecy can overthrow a man's faith. 2 Tim. 2:18
We must ask two questions. First, "Does the Bible really teach that the Church has replaced Israel in God's plan?" Second, "Does the Tanakh (Jewish Old Testament) really forbid a "second floor?"
JESUS AND MOSES' LAW
I use the term Law to refer to the five books of Moses, the Torah. I do not include in this term the Oral Law, which includes a large body of traditions that were added later by pious men who probably meant well. Christian commentaries are in the same class.
Moses wrote "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you." Deut. 4:2 (ESV).
Jews usually do not object to those additions that comprise the Oral Law, but they usually do object to the teaching of Jesus. They say that Jesus broke this command that forbids additions to God's revelation.
Evangelical Christians also add to the Scripture when they teach the theory of a pretribulation rapture of the Church since they cannot find a biblical basis for the idea.
Actually, Jesus respected the Law, the Torah. He said in Matthew 5:17-19 (ESV) "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. [18] For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. [19]Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus' words predict a time when the Law will have been accomplished. For now the Law is what Israel is left with as long as they do not recognize that Jesus is God's latest word. They do not heed the words, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Acts 2:36 (ESV)
Israel today is in a kind of "no man's land." She has no temple in which to offer the required sacrifices and she does not recognize that the Messiah Jesus has made those sacrifices obsolete.
WHO REALLY IS JESUS?
Moses wrote, "I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him." Deut. 18:18 (ESV)
That prophet whom Moses predicted is Jesus. Jesus said, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. John 8:42 (ESV) Jesus is the promised Messiah.
The Gospels present Jesus as sinless. When the Jewish leaders in the first century opposed Jesus, He asked them, "Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?" John 8:46 (ESV) It seems likely that if these Jews could find Jesus guilty of breaking the Law, they would have brought this up at this point. Instead, their hostility toward Him was so great that they did not rest until they obtained a death sentence against Him.
Jesus claimed that He came to fulfill the Law. What does that mean? It is a claim that He understood the commandments and He obeyed them. He must have obeyed completely. If there is a deeper meaning in the Law, He fully met its requirements. In God's plan, His complete obedience to the Law is counted for the benefit of every person who trusts Jesus for salvation.
HAS THE CHURCH REPLACED ISRAEL?
God offered to Israel a more recent covenant than the one given at Sinai. "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers ...." Jeremiah 31:31-32 (ESV)
In this new covenant God promised, "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people." v. 33 This involves the new birth mentioned in the New Testament. God promised "I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me." Jeremiah 33:8 (ESV) This is a very great change from conditions in the past.
The Bible predicts that Israel will change, not that God will totally cast away His earthly people, Israel. Some folks misunderstand Matthew 21:43(ESV) "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits." The KJV used the word nation instead of people, but the Greek is ethnos. Lidddell and Scott's Greek lexicon says the word means a company, a body of men. They are Israelites who would be born in the future.
Here is a picture of Israel's former condition. Isaiah 63:9-11 (ESV) "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. [10] But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them."
Under the new covenant, Israel will have a change of heart. "They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." Ezekiel 37:23 (ESV)
This will happen at the time of the resurrection of the just and the rapture of the saints. This is suggested by the words of Jesus to Israel. "For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Matthew 23:39 (ESV) This will precede the visible world wide rule of Jesus on the earth, the time that is called the millennium. v. 24
God is not finished with Israel. God explicitly promised he will not "cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done." Jeremiah 31:37 (ESV) He said instead, "I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. [40] I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me." Jeremiah 32:39-40 (ESV) This is a promise of a complete conversion.
God promised, "And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore." Ezekiel 37:26 (ESV) This land promised to Israel will be on the earth. God's people are destined to "reign on the earth." Rev. 5:10
Some men falsely claim that Jesus repudiated the idea of a kingdom in the earth. "Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.'" John 18:36 (ESV)
He said this because Satan is the prince of this world which is passing away. "The whole world lies in the power of the evil one." 1 John 5:19 (ESV) When Jesus takes direct control of this earth, one of the first acts of His rule will be to remove Satan from this earth. See Rev. 20:1-3
The land promises given to Israel concern the earth, not the world. "The earth is the Lord's." Christ's kingdom will come on earth.
The Church will not replace Israel. Instead, Israel will become part of the Church. Here is the truth of the matter: "For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. [5] Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days." Hosea 3:4-5 (ESV)
It has been suggested that replacement theology can be traced back to St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, who lived in the fourth century. He expected Jesus to return by a certain date. When this did not happen, he decided that prophecies in the Bible should not be taken literally. This heresy persists among Calvinists today.
John Calvin wrote commentaries on most of the books of the Bible but not on Revelation and he did not finish Ezekiel. Calvin's spiritual descendants have trouble accepting the face value meaning of the words of Scripture. Some of his errors persist today in the works of some modern teachers. Sincerity is no guarantee of faithfulnes to the Scripture.
Calvinists reject the biblical doctrine of the Millennium taught in Revelation 20 and in Old Testament passages like Isaiah 11.
These men in opposing dispensationalism, also "throw out the baby with the bath water." They tend to reject a literalistic interpretation of Bible prophecy. But that is inconsistent with how New Testament authors treat Old Testament prophecy. The Messiah was literally born in Bethlehem to a literal virgin. That Messiah was literally "despised and rejected" by men and He was literally "cut off out of the land of the living."
They accuse Dispensationalists of trying to postpone the kingdom of Christ until after the second coming of Jesus. Yet we believers in the twenty-first century still pray,"Thy kingdom come" in recognition of the fact that it has not yet fully come.
Daniel wrote, "the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men." Daniel 4:17 The kingdom is not yet given to the saints. But that will change for he wrote, "and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,and all dominions shall serve and obey them." Daniel 7:27 (ESV) It should be obvious that the saints do not yet rule on this earth.
THE TANAKH PREDICTS A "SECOND FLOOR"
This new covenant is the second floor that God promised to Israel but that Israel as a whole has not yet entered. The blueprint for it was prepared long ago. Before man was created, God prepared the plan for the second floor when He discussed it with the Messiah. There was a need for a suitable sacrifice so that God could cover the sins of the chosen people. The Messiah agreed to the plan when He said, "Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required." [7] Then I said, 'Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.'" Psalm 40:6-7 (ESV)
Moses' Law, the Torah, cannot give us life because sin is natural in us. God said of Moses' Law, "I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life," Ezekiel 20:25 (ESV) The New Covenant was needed to remedy this deficiency.
The sacrifice that God planned from the beginning will effectively cover the sin of His people. Messiah ben Joseph had to do His work before Messiah ben David could take over human government.
When Israel is finally within the assembly of saints, the second floor will be complete and the Church will be complete.
The Old Covenant, the Torah, has permanent value. It is the foundation for the edifice that God is building. It is incomplete without the New Covenant.
ISRAEL'S RETURN IS A FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY
In 1948 Israel was established again as a nation on her own land. Her return was made in unblief. Scripture had said her physical return would precede the spiritual return.
"Therefore say, 'Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.' ... And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, Ezekiel 11:17, 19 (ESV) Notice that their conversion will follow their regathering.
GOD WILL KEEP HIS PROMISES TO ISRAEL
Those who want God to be finished with Israel as a nation sometimes quote in proof a verse from Joshua. "Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass." Joshua 21:45 (ESV) But this can convince only those who do not think clearly. The verse can apply only to those promises that were intended to be fulfilled by Joshua's time. God intended some promises to find fulfillment later. One of these is the predicted coming of the Prophet, Jesus, in Deut. 18:18.
It is unreasonable to think that in Joshua's day this one could have been fulfilled: "For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days." Hosea 3:4-5 (ESV)
There are false prophets who say God rescinded His ancient covenat with Israel and permanently divorced them. Let God speak for himself. "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Numbers 23:19 (ESV)
God made promises in the Old Testament about the land given to Israel, about a future golden age, about the temple in Jerusalem. Does God break His promises? Did God not know the future when He made the promises? Did something come up that He did not expect?
The focus of the New Testament is to get the Gospel out to all nations. But God has not forgotten His ancient promises.
"Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. [38] And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. [39] I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. [40] I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me." Jeremiah 32:37-40 (ESV)
To deny Israel's future is to deny the plain teaching of the Bible. "I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. [9] And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it." Jeremiah 33:8-9 (ESV)
THE APOCALYPSE CODE - HANK HANEGRAAFF
A modern author teaching Replacement Theology on a daily radio program is Hank Hanegraaff. He writes to disprove ideas of Tim LaHaye and others who teach a pretribulation rapture. He is right to criticise the pretrib rapture idea. The Bible never states it, as has been acknowledged by Dr. John Walvoord and Tim LaHaye. Hank offers instead his own ideas as if he were a partial preterist.
The idea of a rapture is biblical. To place it before the Great Tribulation is not biblical for three good reasons. First, the Bible never states it. Second, the Bible states ideas that contradict it. Third, it is incredible that God would hide it for the first eighteen hundred years of Church history. J. N. Darby, credited as the discoverer of the pretrib rapture, said in his letters that it was a new idea.
What about the partial preterist ideas that Hank supports? He lists some verses from the Bible that are used to support preterism, the theory that Jesus returned in the first century and that Matthew 24 was fullfilled in that century. These verses were examined in my book, "Jesus Did Not Return in A. D. 70." The preterist view is that Jesus expected to return in the lifetime of people standing there.
Jesus said to His disciples, "When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." Matt. 10:23 (ESV
The context here shows that Jesus was sending His followers out on a short term preaching tour, and it has no reference to His parousia at the end of the age.
Here is another. Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Matt. 16:28 (ESV)
Immediately after this event, Jesus appeared in a vision to some of His followers in the transfiguration and later to John in the visions on Patmos. They saw Him, but it was in vision.
Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." Matt. 24:34 (ESV The Greek word genea commonly means generation, but sometimes it means family, race, or kind. As Hank himself says, words are not univocal. Jesus spoke Aramaic. The Aramaic word used here is found in Luke 2:4 and says of Joseph, husband of Mary, "he was of the house and lineage of David." Joseph was of the lineage, or family, of David, not of his generation. Jesus was saying that the Jewish family or race would endure to the end.
Hank seems to assume that God is finished with Israel as a distinct people, But God said in Ezekiel 37, "Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land.... But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.... I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore." Hank misses important Bible truth.
In a broadcast on or about May 17, 2007 I heard Hank say that there is no predicted time of tribulation for Israel in the future. Here is what God said: "Alas! That day is so great there is none like it; it is a time of distress for Jacob; yet he shall be saved out of it. Jeremiah 30:7 (ESV)These words are shown by the context to be before the resurrection of the saints, v. 9.
Jesus said in Matt. 24:21 (ESV) "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be." On page 232 Hank wrote that these words are "prophetic hyperbole." We can't take them literally. In Ezek. 5:9 God said about Jerusalem, "I will do with you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again." Hank argues that since two punishments cannot each be the worst ever, we cannot take either prophecy literally.
Hank doesn't see that Ezekiel was writing of what God would do years later. The Holy Spirit was predicting through Ezekiel the destructlion that would come in A. D. 70.
Is there a future land promise for Israel? "Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob." Ezekiel 28:25 (ESV) This refers to a time when Israel will "know that I am the Lord their God." v. 26 That day has not yet come.
Hank holds a bias against Israel. In this new book on page 119 he wrote of the harlot in Revelation 17, "And that nation is Israel." John had written in 17:9, "the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated." and we know that Rome was built on seven mountains. Also John wrote, "And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth." When John wrote, Rome ruled the earth. The harlot is not Israel or Jerusalem, but she is Rome.
Hank's bias against Israel is shown in his repeated criticism that there are so many displaced Palestinians who live in camps in Israel. He does not seem to care that nearly equal numbers of Jews were forced out of their homes in Moslem countries when Israel became a state in 1948. These Jews left taking nothing except the clothes on their backs. Where are they today;? Israel welcomed and integrated them. Where are the Palestinians? Arab countries refused to accept them, preferring to leave them in camps in Israel as a permanent accusation against Israel.
On page 268 of The Apocalypse Code Hank wrote, "Israel is an exclusivist state that is guilty of stealing such basic goods as water and ancestral homes from Palestinian natives." This is a misrepresentation of history. Is he saying that the League of Nations that gave the mandate over the land to Britain had no right to do so? When the League offered that the land be shared betwween Israel and the Arabs, the League had no right to make the offer? Israel accepted the offer and the Arabs refused. Was Israel wrong to accept this offer?
What state in the Arab world beside Israel permits freedom of religion or democratic principles? In the Arab world, unlike in Israel, Christians and Jews are forced to convert to Islam or to die.
Hank wrote "not only is the notion of a third temple an inference imposed on the Scriptures ..." On page 213 he says Scripture forbids Christians to partake of buillding a third temple. But it will be Jews, not Christians, who will build it.
Hank insists that God today has only one chosen people, those in the Church. This seems to suggest that God will not any longer keep some of His promises such as those in Jeremiah 32 where God promised to regather His people, give them a heart to fear Him forever, make with them an everlasting covenant and put the fear of Him in their hearts so they will not turn away. God used the words everlasting and forever.
Hank misinterprets the 144,000 of Revelation chapter 7. On page 125 he wrote, "the 144,000 and the great multitude are not two different peoples, but two different ways of describing the same purified bride." This is Hank's guess, not careful exegesis. The great multitude are martyred saints in heaven. The 144,000 are Jews who are sealed on earth so their lives are preserved during the Great tribulation. Rev. 9:4
I think I heard Hank answer a caller's question by saying there will be no future holocaust for the Jews because the Great Tribulation of Matthew 24 happened in the first century. But the Matthew passage shows in verses 19-31 certain things that will happen "immediately after" that event, and they did not happen in the first century. Zechariah 14:3,4 says God will end that period by appearing on the earth. "On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward." That didn't happen so it must be in the future.
Preterists argue that words like soon must mean what we commonly think they mean, "they were written to a first century church about to face the nother of all tribulations." p. 91 God Himself answered this objection when He said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Isaiah 55:8 (ESV) He said, "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 2 Peter 3:8 (ESV)
Parts of the Bible that Hank does not want to believe he calls "apocalyptic" that one cannot take literally. He does this with the resurrection account found in Matthew 27, which is not prophecy but history.
WHY DO WE EXPECT TO SEE A REBUILT JEWISH TEMPLE?
Paul expected an end time temple. He wrote of the time of the parousia of Jesus, "Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, [4] who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God." 2 Thes. 2:3-4 (ES) Before Jesus returns, a temple will be standing.
Jesus said in Matthew 24 the abomination of desolation will stand in the holy place, the temple. The chapter is about the parousia of Jesus. If that lies in the future, so must the temple be in the future.
At the end of the Old Testament we find these words: "Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:1 (ESV) This says the temple will be standing before Jesus returns.
We know this cannot refer to Jesus' first appearance for it says, "Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years." Malachi 3:4 (ESV) These offerings would not have been pleasing to the Lord while Israel was in rebellion. This will change with a repentant Israel.
Furthermore, Ezekiel's temple described in chapters 40 and beyond has never been built. It must be built or the prophet was mistaken.
If the temple must be rebuilt before Jesus returns for the Church, then the idea that Jesus may return "at any moment" is not true. I just read a statement by a theologian of the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. He said Jesus gave no sign that would precede His return. Dispensationalists say the same thing. Not so. Matthew 24 was given in response to the disciples' question, "What will be the sign of your parousia?" Jesus answered that question. Paul wrote that Jesus will return at the parousia. 1 Thess. 4:15 Therefore the signs Jesus gave in Matthew 24 must occur before He returns for the Church.
Why must the Jew rebuild the temple? Before God can pour promised blessings on Israel, they must repent and it will be shown by obedience to the last command God gave Israel. "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel." Malachi 4:4 (ESV)
WHY DO WE EXPECT TO SEE LEVITICAL OFFERINGS AGAIN?
We expect it on the basis of God's promises. "For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, [18] and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever." Jer. 33:17-18 (ESV) People object because there seems to be no need for sacrifices after Jesus died to take away sins. In reality, Jews will have come to understand for the first time rites that they practiced in ignorance thousands of years before.
To deny future sacrifices is to say that Ezekiel and Jeremiah are false prophets. It is better to believe God's Word than to disbelieve because we cannot understand it. We do not honor God when we choose which prophecies we will believe.
Harold Camping, a Bible teacher on Family Radio, denies that Israel has any predicted future of blessing. He says the Bible promises that say this are to be spiritualised and applied to the Church. This is an ancient error taught often in churches that hold Reformed theology. He treats even historical actions in the Bible as parables and denies a literal application for prophecies of the future.
WHY DO WE EXPECT TWO FUTURE COMINGS OF JESUS?
Some believers, such as Calvinists and Seventh Day Adventists expect only one future coming. Is there a biblical answer to the question?
The Bible does not explicitly say there is only one future coming of Jesus.
The first resurrection of Rev. 20 is specifically said to be before the Milennium. The context limits it to the righteous. Revelation 20 tells us of another resurrection. The word resurrection means standing up again, something that involves use of the legs. It is never in scripture used of souls apart from bodies, so the word cannot refer to the conversion of a soul.
The coming of Jesus to rapture the Church seems to be found at the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11:18, but the coming of Jesus to punish the wicked is found in chapter 15 at the Wrath of God. Chapter 19 comes at the end of the bowls. We do not know how much time passes in the interval between chapter 11 and the end of chapter 16.
Isaiah 26:20 implies some amount of time passes between the rapture of verse 20 and the end of the wrath of God in verse 21 when there will be two appearances of Jesus on earth. It says in Isaiah 26:20-21 (ESV) "Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. [21] For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain."
This period when the saints are in their "chambers," in heaven, is spoken of in 2 Thes. 1:6-8 (ESV): "God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, [7] and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ..."
The rapture passage, I Thess. 4:17, uses the Greek word harpazo, and a study of all the instances where it is used in the New Testament shows that those to be caught up do not ordinarily return to their previous position or condition: they will not return immediately to the earth but they will be removed from the earth. The text says they will remain forever with the Lord. The unrighteous will have no share in this first resurrection.
God must deal with two groups, the saved and the lost. We read, "Gather the weeds first," because God does not deal with both saved and lost at the same time. The lost will be gathered to be burned before the saved are gathered living into the Milllennial kingdom.
In the parable of the Ten Virgins, "And while they [the foolish] were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Matt.25:10 (ESV) This suggests that the rapture comes first before the wicked meet their fate.
Two harvests are planned. First the righteous are to be harvested, then the grapes of the second harvest will be thrown into "the great winepress of the wrath of God." Rev. 14:16, 19
Did the early Church believe in two future comings of Jesus? In the Didache ("The Teaching of the Apostles"),
dated at the end of the first century, after the Antichrist appears and all the world passes through the fire of testing, "and then shall the signs of the truth appear, first a sign of a rift in the heaven, then a sign of a voice of a trumpet, and thirdly a resurrection of the dead; yet not of all, but as it was said, the Lord shall come and all His saints with Him ...."
Why does it say, "yet not of all"? I think this is recognition that the wicked will not share in the first resurrection.
WHY DO WE EXPECT A LITERAL THOUSAND YEAR REIGN OF JESUS?
Calvinists sometimes warn against taking Bible prophecy literally. They say the term thousand in Revelation is not intended to be taken as a literal number. Perhaps it really means age-long. But this is obviously wrong. If the number is not literal, why did John tweak the number three times in Revelation? See 11:3;12:6; & 14:20. If the number is not to be taken literally, there would be no need to make it more precise by adding a bit more to the number.
Some theologians have alleged that belief in a millennium offers "a second chance for conversion." Such a charge is without a biblical foundation and should be totally rejected. Some claim that the doctrine of a millennium is based on a single passage in the Revelation, and such persons appear unaware of much that is in the Old Testament prophets that is part of God's Words.
We are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The Bible promises that Jesus will reign on earth in the future. It says of the saints in Rev. 5:10 (ESV)"and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."
Reformed theologians claim there is no biblical grounds for expecting a future millennium. The Bible says Rev. 20:4 (ESV) "Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years." During this time, Satan was to be held with a five-fold lock so that he could no longer deceive the nations. Obviously that did not occur during the church age.
When one examines writings of the early Church Fathers, he finds that belief in a literal millennium was nearly universal in the first three centuries. The historian Edward Gibbon wrote that this belief "appearas to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers."
In the middle of the third century Origin began the allegorising of Bible prophecy, an error that in the twenty first century marks the teaching of Harold Camping of Family Radio.
In the fourth century, Augustine and Jerome began to question the doctrine of the Millennium. As the power of the Roman Catholic church grew, some doctrines began to disappear and others to be allegorised until the time of the Reformation.
Luther wrote, "The Christian should direct his efforts towards understanding the so-called literal sense of Scripture."
Isaiah chapters 11 and 35 describe conditions on earth that have never yet been seen because they refer to a future golden age on the earth. That is the Millennium.
WHY DO WE EXPECT TWO FUTURE RESURRECTIONS?
Those who do not expect two sometimes quote this verse."Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." John 5:28-29 (ESV)
This refers to the final resurrection when men stand before the great white throne. "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. [13] And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done." Rev. 20:12-13 (ESV)
But there will be an earlier resurrection of the righteous, It was at the last trumpet. "The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great,...." Rev. 11:18 (ESV) That refers to the first resurrection.
John wrote," They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years." Rev. 20:4 (ESV) Then he wrote, "This is the first resurrection," A first implies a second. Hank believes parts of the Bible, but this part he ignores.
John wrote, "Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! .... " Rev. 20:6 (ESV) This is placed before the thousand year millennial reign. The unholy and those who are not blessed must wait their turn.
Later John wrote, "And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done." Rev. 20:13 (ESV) This is the event to which John 5 refers.
Daniel wrote. "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel 12:2 (ESV) He places this event after "the time of trouble," the Great Tribulation, which will come before the thousand year reign of Jesus on earth.
God will keep His promise to preserve earthly Israel. "Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob," Amos 9:8 (ESV)
Then He said, "I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. [15] I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them," Amos 9:14-15 (ESV) That must be in the future.
The future "Israel" is not the Church. God said in Ezekiel 39:25f (ESV), "Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name.... Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore."
Then God said in verse 29, "And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord God." To say the house of Israel here is the Church is to pervert the text.
The following books by the author, John E. Young, are available from him at ten dollars each.
A Clearer View of the Rapture
Jesus Did Not Return in A. D. 70
Revelation: A Clearer View
The Rapture Examined
Order from John Young, 6 Robert St., Rockaway, N. J. 07866
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