In debating with Dual-Covenat people, Hyper-Dispies, and Jewish Roots focus people, they tend to dodge the real issues with the hurtful, anti-semite! Have any of you ever gotten this? How do you respond lovingly and according to scripture. My "fleshly" responce is that I just want to SCREAM...."I am NOT anti-anyone!......of course that gets you nowhere. What is the best and proper way to answer, if you feel that you should answer such a charge?

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~etexas~

Hate to post so quickly on my own thread.....but they also throw around "Replacement Theology"....I am usually...who am I trying to "replace"? The Lord Jesus was born Jewish as the Greater Son of David....I am not trying to replace him! The Apostle Paul was Jewish of birth....I am not trying to replace him. Is this accusation also a red herring....I do not "get" this Replacement thing.

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~etexas~

I'm an anti-dentite.

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

......Guess I COULD say I am a big Seinfed fan.

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~etexas~

If it were me I would answer by "So what?" Then I would say,

The church doesn't replace Israel; Jesus does.

Every spiritual blessing was won by Christ. The new testament says these blessings are "in him," and if we are in Christ, then they belong to us. All the promises of the Old Testament now apply and are fulfilled in Christ. Therefore, if we are united to Christ, then they are ours! The kingdom that God promised his people in the Old Testament is not some fuzzy, spiritual reality now-called the church. No, the kingdom is given to Christ and we, the church, experience it through him! (Moore, 119). And what does the resurrected Jesus inherit? He inherits the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Acts 13:32-33)

The NT applies to Jesus language previously applied to Israel (Ex. 4.22; Matthew 2.15). So Jesus replaces Israel, not the church.
So it's not the church that replaces Israel, but Jesus that replaces Israel--and the church by union in Christ share and inherit these blessings (heirs with God, fellow heirs with Jesus Christ).

While I usually despise answering questions with "copy/paste," since it's my own stuff I figured it's okay.
Rebuilding the Ruins: dodging the impasse between dispensationalism and covenant theology

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

I have tried that but with little success....if I say Jesus fufils or "replaces" Israel....it is treated as if the statement were tantomont to the Church usurping some unrightful position.

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~etexas~

Then you say "So what?" Seriously, the above is different from standard covenant theology. Some CT theologians have used language that lends itself to the anti-semite charge. But the above is not it.

It's an emotional argument on their part. I would say what kind of fallacy they are committing, but I fear that would be overboard for one day.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

I think the great wisdom in your statement is that it is an emotional argument. That being the case......perhaps it might be best not to discourse with those who will not be rational.

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~etexas~

yes
I think it was the warning I got most often when I mentioned I had started going to a PCA church.

People said:
Watch out for an underlying disdain for the state of Israel.
Watch out for that replacement theology.
Watch out about having all your joy and emotions held in check.
Those people are all preterists aren't they?
Those people are all libs aren't they?

I cannot believe how many people think they are experts in what other groups believe.

I am still having problems with being considered anti semitic because I beg my mom who lives on a meager retirement check to please stop sending money to preachers who are trying to save Israel and rebuild a temple.

I am about at the point of just saying I believe Jesus is the Messiah so I am automatically kicked out of the groups that don't proclaim that and then moving on to the next topic.

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Richard H. King
Providence PCA
Lubbock, Texas
"No matter how far a man goes, he eventually finds out God's already there." John Wayne - the last line in "Chisum"

The last round about that I got into with a dispy Baptist preacher that leveled that charge at me I retorted with "why do you hate Christ and downplay His Blood atonement"?. That's exactly what they do when they teach two different peoples of God with two different inheritances. If I'm anti-semite you're an anti-christ. If they are dual covenant, which this fellow was, they are involved in serious false teaching.

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1689 Baptist Confession

Psa 55:16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
Psa 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
James Farley, Wilderness Road Baptist Assembly.
Husband of Melissa and father of Ann.
www.wildernessroadbaptist.org

Good point! they throw their charge around ike so much loose change....yet.....yes, they hold the Anti "ground" anti-Christ.

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~etexas~

This was actually the first question I had for a Reformed Pastor when my husband was studying Reformed Theology and took me to a (gasp!) PCA.

1) are they just accusing you of it as a means to shut you up or are they the type really willing to listen?

2) the Pastor that I spoke with was patient and explained that instead of "replacing", the church is a "continuation"...then went on to explain how Covenant Theology is one Covenant, a running thread from the beginning to the end. That made sense to me.

He made no attacks upon my previously held views or Israel and it's issues throughout history. He stayed focused on God's people throughout history to today.

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JC
URCNA
PA

"Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does not mean we will allow injustice again." --Jack Kornfield

Thank you. I like a word you used..continuation! The church is very inclusive! There are "physical Jews" grafted into the Church the same as Gentiles. Starting from this point an anti-Semite charge does not hold water.

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~etexas~

Nothing has caused Western society to feel the need to kiss the collective behind of Jews like the Holocaust. Jews have milked those truly horrific years for every ounce of propaganda value they can... and then some! So great is the fear of offending the Jew that now Jewish folks will label a person "anti-semitic" for simply questioning a given practice or policy of the state of Israel. Any challenge to a "Jewish" doctrine, tradition, or practice is grounds (in their mind) to call someone anti-semitic. If I'm to be labeled "anti-" (fill in the blank with any given people group) for simply challenging a doctrine or tradition, or practice... then I suppose that I'm anti-everybody.

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Ben
Sanford, NC
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

Good point! I once challenged much Reformed doctrine or at least qustioned it....so for a while I guess someone could have called me anti-Reformedite!

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~etexas~

Precisely...and I like the way you stated that; it was also pretty much what the Pastor had said.

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JC
URCNA
PA

"Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does not mean we will allow injustice again." --Jack Kornfield

"Milk" the holocaust for every ounce..."?

That is careless language.


I prefer to call it ENGRAFTMENT theology rather than REPLACEMENT theology. We are now all one people in Christ. It is not as if the Tree Israel was chopped down and a Gentile one planted in its place; we have all been engrafted into the one tree ISRAEL; believing Jew and believing Gentile alike.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

When you consider the number of children slain in their mother's womb, western socieities' "repentance" over the holocaust is pretty shallow. Don't get me wrong, it was a horrible event, but the same thing is happening all over Europe today.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

The answer is greater repentance for all these evils, not blaming the victims by seeing, "You all are wringing all you can get out of this repentence business....and I am tired of it..."



Of course, about the Jewish atrocities in WWII, most Americans have family members who were soldiers in WWII and helped stop this atrocity, so no guilt on our part.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

Actually I should add someting here....the anti-Semite charge has in fact come from Gentiles in the whole dual covenant thing....I think only one gentleman who had but a drop of Jewish blood ever said this to me! I have a very good Jewish friend who refered to the radical Christian-Zionist as "Odd ducks!"

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~etexas~

Replacement Theology is a misnomer. The Church does not replace Israel. The Church Is Israel, and always has been, even in the Old Covenant.

I've been called and anti-semite by any number of Dispensationalists. I like to point out that modern evangelicals are pushing to help Jews return to Israel and reclaim the temple mount. Why? So that 1/3 of the can be killed during the Great Tribulation.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

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Scott Kessler
Covenant Community OPC
Staunton, VA
Covenant Theology
Christian Skepticism
Christianity In History