Excursus: Why Every Self-respecting Calvinist Must Be a Premillennialist
This material is taken from a message delivered by the author at the March, 2007 Grace Community Church Shepherds’ Conference. It has been lightly edited, but no effort has been made to remove the marks of the original spoken message. It is included here as an expansion of a theme introduced in the discussion of the covenants in chapters 9–11 of this volume. A proper interpretation of the biblical data leads to the conclusion that God’s promises to Israel will be literally fulfilled to the nation of Israel and not transferred to the church. That reality logically leads to premillennialism.
It is one of the strange ironies in the church and Reformed theology that those who love the doctrine of sovereign election most supremely and sincerely, and who are most unwavering in their devotion to the glory of God, the honor of Christ, the work of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification, the veracity and inerrancy of Scripture, and who are the most fastidious in hermeneutics, and who are the most careful and intentionally biblical regarding categories of doctrine, and who see themselves as guardians of biblical truth, and are not content to be wrong at all, and who agree most heartily on the essential matters of Christian truth so that they labor with all their powers to examine in a Berean fashion every relevant text to discern the true interpretation of all matters of divine revelation are in varying degrees of noninterest in applying those same passions and skills to the end of the story, and are rather content to be in a happy and even playful disagreement regarding the vast biblical data on eschatology, as if the end didn’t matter much.
But it does matter that Calvinists care about eschatology and get it right—and we will if we get Israel right. We get Israel right when we get the Old Testament covenants and promises right. We get the Old Testament covenants and promises right when we get the interpretation of Scripture right. We get the interpretation of Scripture right when we’re faithful to a legitimate hermeneutic and God’s integrity is upheld. We get our hermeneutics right, we’ll get the Old Testament promises right. Get the promises right, we’ll get Israel right. Get Israel right, we’ll get eschatology right.
The Bible calls God the God of Israel more than 200 times. There are more than 2,000 references to Israel in Scripture, and not one of them means anything but Israel, including Romans 9:6 and Galatians 6:16, which are the only two passages that amillennialists go to, to try to convince us that those cancel out the other 2,000. There is no difficulty in interpreting those verses as simply meaning Jews who were believers, the Israel of God. Israel always means Israel, never means anything but Israel. Seventy-three New Testament uses of Israel always mean Israel.
Seventy percent of Scripture is the story of Israel. And, I think, the whole point of the story is to get to the ending—and it doesn’t go up in smoke. So here’s how to get the foundation for an accurate understanding of eschatology. Get election right and get Israel right. Those two go together; they’re inseparable. How is it that we’ve come to get number one right and totally miss number two so often? I’m confident that God did not reveal prophetic truth in such detail to hide or obscure the truth, but to reveal it for our blessing, our motivation, and ultimately His glory.
But there is a theology concerning Israel and the end times—popular in many Reformed and Calvinistic circles today—that I believe does not get things right concerning Israel. It is replacement theology, and scholastically it’s often referred to as supersessionism. This view demands that all the Old Testament promises to Israel be viewed through the lens of the New Testament and ultimately get transferred to the church. Replacement theology, an integral part of amillennialism, also creates a strange dichotomy, since all the curses promised to Israel came to Israel. Literally, and they’re still coming. If one wonders whether the curses in the Old Testament were literal, they’re going on right now. Israel right now is not under divine protection. They are under the promise of God that they will be perpetuated as an ethnic people, but this current group of Jews that live in the world today and in the nation of Israel are not now under divine protection—they’re apostate. They’ve rejected their Messiah. They are under divine chastening. But they are still a people and will be to the end.
What a staggering apologetic that is for the truthfulness of Scripture. We can’t abandon that without a huge loss of confidence in Scripture. All the curses promised to Israel for disobedience to God came true, literally on Israel. And now, all of a sudden, we’re supposed to split all those passages that give blessing and cursing and say all the blessings promised to Israel aren’t coming to Israel; they’re coming to the church instead? Where’s the textual justification for such a split interpretation? And wouldn’t we think that whatever way the curses were fulfilled would set the standard for whatever way the blessings would be fulfilled? Or to put the question in another context, Wouldn’t we expect that all the prophecies that came to pass when Jesus came in a literal fashion would set the pattern for how the prophecies connected to His second coming would come to pass? There’s no place for splitting up these interpretations.
Thus the Old Testament cannot be amillennial. If we affirm a normal hermeneutic—the perspicuity of the Old Testament—of course it pronounces clearly covenants and promises and a kingdom to come to Israel.
The Old Testament must be interpreted, preached, and taught as clear revelation from God that is to be understood, believed, and applied by the people to whom it was given. So what did God promise Israel? Look at the twelfth chapter of Genesis, and obviously this is a study beyond our capability to dig into all the details. But it’s clear and straightforward; it’s not difficult. I want us to see the connection between these covenants and divine, electing sovereignty.
Genesis 12:1 says, “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house.’” Now here we have a great illustration of election. That’s almost like a Damascus Road experience, isn’t it? What did Abraham, or Abram as he’s called here, do to set this in motion? Nothing. Abram plays no part in this covenant.
Follow the use of the expression “I will” in verses 2–3: “And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” I will, I will, I will, I will, I will—five times. It is sovereign, unilateral, unconditional election.
That’s prophecy. God later puts Abram to sleep and says this is what is going to happen: “I will also judge the nations whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age” (Gen. 15:14–15).
Then in verse 17: “It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.” God put Abram out, anesthetized him, and He alone went through the pieces—a unilateral, unconditional, irrevocable promise that God made with Himself. There were no conditions for Abram to fulfill. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with him.
It is to be a covenant that does not end. Chapter 17, verse 7 says, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.” God elected Abram, elected the nation that would come out of his loins, made a covenant and a promise with them to be their God. This is the foundational covenant in the Bible—foundational, biblical covenant—the promise of God, unilateral and unconditional.
God’s decision to set His love on Israel was in no way determined by Israel’s performance. It was not determined by Israel’s national worthiness. It was based purely on His independent, uninfluenced, sovereign grace (see Deut. 7:7–8). He chose them because He predetermined to set His love on them, for no other reason but election. The survival of the kingdom of Judah, despite the blatant sin of its rulers, depended on covenant promises God had made (read Pss. 89 and 132, where these are reiterated). God’s unilateral covenant declares that the Lord alone is the party responsible to fulfill the obligations. There are no conditions that Abraham or any other Jew could fulfill on his own. It’s no different from our salvation—we were divinely chosen. But we didn’t come to Christ on our own. We were given life by the Spirit of God in God’s time. God’s unilateral covenant declares that the Lord is the sole party responsible to fulfill the obligations to preserve Israel.
Obedience is not the condition that determines fulfillment. Divine, sovereign power is the condition that determines obedience, which leads to fulfillment. When God gave Israel the unilateral covenant, He knew He would have to produce the obedience in the future, according to His plan.
Then God gave the Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7, where the promise comes to David that he’ll have a greater Son who will have an everlasting kingdom. That is an expansion, by the way, of the Abrahamic covenant. Verse 12 says, “I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” God promises to Abraham a seed, a land, a nation, and now, of course that embodies a kingdom, and now comes the promise of a King. This is an expansion of the Abrahamic covenant. And what’s notable here, again, in 2 Samuel 7:12–13, “I will raise up your descendant … I will establish his kingdom…I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” I will … I will … I will … again.
This is not to say the Abrahamic covenant is only for Israel. We all participate in its blessings spiritually—and we will millennially. The Abra-hamic and the Davidic covenants—we all will participate in them, even those not of Israel, because we’ll participate in salvation and be in the kingdom.
There’s a third covenant, the New covenant. Jeremiah 31—there can be no fulfillment of the promises God gave to Abraham or David apart from salvation. Throughout history there has always been an Israel of God, there’s always been a remnant, there have always been those who didn’t bow the knee to Baal. God always has had a chosen people. But not all Israel is Israel. That is to say, not all Israel is the true Israel of God, true believers. But God has always had a remnant, always had a people—always, as Isaiah 6 says, a stump, a holy seed throughout history. But in the future there will be a salvation of ethnic Israel on a national level. And that’s the message of Jeremiah 31. Here is the New covenant given to Israel.
We like to talk about the New covenant because we participate in the salvation provision of the New covenant, ratified in the death of Christ. But the application of the New covenant is in a special way given to a future generation of Jews. Jeremiah 31:31 says, “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a New covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah [that is unmistakable], not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel’” (vv. 32–33).
What warrant is there to say that doesn’t mean Israel? It does mean Israel. I will … I will … I will … I will … I will make a covenant with the house of Israel. “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God and they shall be My people … I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (vv. 33–34). Did we ever see so many “I wills”?—unconditional, unilateral, sovereign, gracious, and irrevocable.
We could say, “Well, maybe God changed His mind.” Go to verse 35: “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name: ‘If this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘then the offspring of Israel also shall cease.’” I haven’t noticed that that’s happened. If it doesn’t mean what it just said, it’s incomprehensible.
And the New covenant promises the salvation that then includes the reception of all the promises in the Abrahamic covenant, Davidic covenant, and all the extended promises throughout the whole Old Testament.
What is the key feature of this? “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God….I will forgive their iniquity.”
Notice how sovereign that is: “I will do it; I will do it in My time.”
Look at Ezekiel 36, because this is a parallel; but I think it’s good just to be reminded. Ezekiel 36:24–27, “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you,”—It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?—“and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
How could anybody walk in His statutes and obey and observe His ordinances? Only if He caused them to do it. “You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.”
And then verse 32, just a good reminder: “‘I am not doing this for your sake,’ declares the Lord God, ‘let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel!’” For whose sake is He doing it? His own sake.
Go to the end of verse 38. When God does this, “Then they will know that I am the Lord” (see also v. 37).
So when God gave unilateral, unconditional-as-primary-cause, sovereign, gracious promises to an elect people, they are guaranteed by divine faithfulness to be fulfilled like all His salvation work. And when God says such covenant promises are irrevocable, we cannot, with impunity for any seemingly convenient idea or assumption, say these are void. Why?
Someone may say, “Well, what about Israel’s apostasy? Doesn’t that cancel the promises? Doesn’t Israel’s apostasy cancel the promises?” But do we understand that the New covenant promises given in Jeremiah and Ezekiel were given to Israel at the time when they were under divine judgment for apostasy. They weren’t given to them when all was well and they were living and flourishing in obedience to God. They were so apostate, they were out of their land and then the covenant was given to them. And God was saying, “Don’t get the idea that what’s going on by way of apostasy changes My promises.”
Someone else may say, “Well wait a minute, didn’t they reject their Lord and Messiah? That did it. They rejected Him. They killed Jesus.” That’s in the plan. One of the wacky ideas of old-line dispensationalism is that Jesus came and offered a kingdom; and because the Jews didn’t accept it and killed Him, He went to the church and came up with plan B.
The cross is not plan B. What is Zechariah 12:10 saying when it declares, “They look on Him whom they have pierced” (see Ps. 22 and Isa. 53)? It’s in the main plan. And then 13:1 says, “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David.” Israel will be saved. The New covenant will be fulfilled. Keep reading into chapter 14: “The Lord will be king over all the earth” (v. 9). There is no other way to interpret Zechariah 12–14.
So is the Old Testament amillennial? No. Were the Jews in Jesus’ day amillennial? No. Emile Schurer’s helpful Study of Jewish Eschatology in the Day of Jesus, published in 1880 by T. & T. Clarke in Edinburgh (a new edition of it was published by Hendrickson Publishing in 1998), does a great job of studying the Jewish messianic, eschatological mindset at the time of Jesus. They believed the Messiah was coming, preceded by a time of trouble. They believed that before Messiah, Elijah the prophet would come. They believed that when Messiah came, He would be the personal Son of David. He would have special powers to set up His kingdom, and all Abrahamic and Davidic covenant promises would be fulfilled. They also believed that Israel would repent and be saved at the coming of Messiah. They believed the kingdom would be established in Israel, with Jerusalem at the center, and would extend across the world. They believed that peace and righteousness would dominate the world. All people would worship the Messiah. There would be no war, only gladness and health. They believed in a reinstituted temple worship; and the fulfillment of the covenants included the renovation of the world, a general resurrection, final judgment, and after that the eternal state. That’s Jewish pre-New Testament eschatology.
That’s what Zacharias, the priestly father of John the Baptist, believed. Read Zacharias’s great Benedictus in Luke 1:67 to the end of the chapter. And what is he saying? Every single phrase comes from an Old Testament text on the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, or the New covenant—every single one of them. He knew what was happening. The covenants were to be fulfilled.
Was Jesus an amillennialist? Acts 1 is the first postresurrection account “about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen” (vv. 1–2). There’s election again.
So He had spent time before His ascension with the apostles. Now verse 3 says, “To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days.” Literally, “appearing to them over forty days.” It must have been intense. Can we imagine the level of teaching a resurrected Jesus would give His own over a forty-day period? What kind of a seminary education would that be? And what was He talking about?—“speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.”
For forty days He talks about the kingdom of God. This is His moment. If Jesus is an amillennialist, this is where He has to tell them. The Jews’ apostasy—that’s a given. The rejection of the Messiah, that’s a given. The execution of the Messiah, that’s a given. This is the perfect place for Jesus to launch amillennialism.
Verse 6 says, “So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’” Now what did He say? “Where did you get such a stupid idea? Where did you ever come up with that concept? Haven’t you been listening for forty days? I’m an amillennialist. What a bizarre thought, that I’m going to restore the kingdom to Israel? You don’t listen.” This is it. If Jesus is amillennialist, this is His moment. He’s got to say, “No, the church is the new Israel.”
The disciples ask if this is the time the Father is going to restore apokathistanō (according to Jewish sources, a technical eschatological term for the end time). They were using a term that was a part of their eschatology. “Is this the end time when You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Forty days of instruction on the kingdom and they knew one thing for sure: the kingdom for Israel was still coming. And all they wanted to know was, When? That’s all.
“He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs’” (v. 7a). We can’t know timing. He didn’t say, “Wait, wait, wait. There isn’t going to be a kingdom.” He said, “It’s not for you to know times and epochs [seasons].”
By the way “which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (v. 7b). There’s that sovereign election again. It’s sovereign. The disciples knew that when they asked, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom?” (v. 6). They knew it was a divine work to do it. This was a perfect opportunity for Jesus to straighten things out.
Let’s dig a little into the text of verse 7: “which the Father has fixed [tithēmi, ‘set, appointed’].” “Fixed” is in the aorist middle—“fixed for Himself.” It’s about His glory. It’s about His exaltation. It’s about the whole world finally seeing paradise regained. It’s about God finally being glorified—who is so dishonored throughout human history. It’s about the glory of God and the honor of Jesus Christ. And God the Father has fixed for Himself that time by His own authority—it is singular, unilateral. There is no other way to understand it.
There’s no replacement theology in the theology of Jesus. There’s no supersessionism, which is a movement to establish that there is no earthly kingdom for Israel. That is absolutely foreign to the Old Testament and completely foreign to the New Testament. Jesus didn’t say, “Where did you get that crazy idea? Haven’t you been listening?”
They just couldn’t know the seasons, the time. The cross was always the plan. He said, you remember, in the eighteenth chapter of Luke, also recorded in Matthew and Mark, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem” (v. 31). And what’s going to happen, if we put those three accounts together? “I [Jesus] am going to be betrayed. I’m going to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes. They’re going to condemn Me. They’re going to hand Me over to the Gentiles because they can’t execute Me. All this is in exact order. Then when I’m handed over to the Gentiles, I’m going to be mocked, mistreated, spit on, scourged, crucified, and I’m rising again” (see vv. 32–33).
That’s not plan B. In fact, if we think that’s plan B, we’re fools. And Jesus used that terminology: “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25). So, wherever this amillennial thing came from, it didn’t come from the Old Testament, it didn’t come from New Testament Jews, and it didn’t come from Jesus.
We might say, “Well, were the apostles amillennialists?” How about Peter; was Peter an amillennialist? In Acts 3, Peter is preaching away: “Men of Israel,” and so forth. Verse 13: “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the One whom you delivered [there’s that primary and secondary element] and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life” (vv. 13–15). What an indictment! They [the Jews] couldn’t be any worse, any more horrific.
Verse 18: “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” That’s literal, isn’t it? “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord [‘the times of refreshing’ is a kingdom phrase] and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you [set for you, fixed for you], whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration [another kingdom term] of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time” (vv. 19–21).
And then I specially love verses 25–27, “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers.” Does Peter cancel the covenant? What does he say? “You…are the sons of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning everyone of you from your wicked ways [and He will do that; you’re still the sons of the covenant].” That was a perfect opportunity to cancel those promises.
How about James, the head of the Jerusalem church? Was he amillennial in his view? Acts 15—“James answered, saying, ‘Brethren, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written, “After these things I will return, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago”’” (vv. 13–18).
The acceptance of the Gentiles is not the cancellation of promises to Israel. After Gentile conversion, after the times of the Gentiles are over, God will rebuild the tabernacle of David that is fallen—rebuild its ruins and restore it. Davidic covenant promises and Messianic promises will be fulfilled.
Maybe the writer of Hebrews was an amillennialist: “When God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you’” (6:13)—I will, I will; no hesitation. And he calls on our understanding of swearing. “Men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath” (vv. 16–17). God swears, or makes an oath. And “it is impossible,” the next verse says, “for God to lie.”
Maybe the apostle Paul was the first amillennialist: “What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be!” (Rom. 3:1–4). And this is where Paul [the amillennialist] would have said, “Absolutely … absolutely; it nullifies the promise of God; unquestionably, it nullifies the promise of God.” But it doesn’t say that.
Romans 9:6–8 says, “But it is not as though the Word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel [that is to say, they’re not all true Israel, that is, believers]; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but ‘through Isaac your descendants will be named.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of promise are regarded as descendants.” There are children God has elected to fulfill His promise in. And He goes on to describe it, saying something as blatant as this: “Jacob I loved,” verse 13, “but Esau I hated.” Verse 15: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Verse 16: “It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” Verse 18: “He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” This is back to the whole idea of sovereignty again.
Just because there are some Jews who don’t believe does not nullify the faithfulness of God. Just because there are some that God chooses, doesn’t mean that He’s not going to choose a whole duly constituted generation of Jews to fulfill His promises.
And then perhaps most notable, Romans 11:26a, “All Israel will be saved.” How can we interpret that? One way. Someone tells me that’s not Israel? Where in the text does it say it’s not Israel? I would understand if it said, “And God has cancelled His promises to Israel.” But verses 26–27 say, “All Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘The deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.’”
Yes, they are enemies at the present time. But that is for the sake of the Gentiles, verse 29, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable,” which brings us back to where we started.
If it depended on the Jews to obey on their own, it was impossible from the start. Only the One who made the promise can enable the obedience that is connected to the fulfillment of the promise.
So when Jonathan Edwards wrote this: “Promises that were made by the prophets to the people of Israel concerning their future prosperity and glory are fulfilled in the Christian church according to their proper intent,” I say, “Where did he get that? Where did that come from?” It didn’t come from any passage that I can find.
Let me just conclude with some effects. I’d suggest for your reading, Israel and the Church by Ronald Diprose. It first appeared in Italian as a Ph.D. dissertation and has no connection to traditional dispensational-ism. It’s a really, really fine work on replacement theology. It shows the effect of this idea upon the church of the Dark Ages, explaining how the church went from the New Testament concept of the church to the sacerdotal, sacramental, institutional system of the Dark Ages that we know as Roman Catholicism. Diprose lays much of that at the feet of replacement theology, which rises out of Augustine and a few before him.
Where did the church ever come up with altars? There’s no altar in the New Testament. Where did the church ever come up with sacrifices? Where did the church ever come up with a parallel sign to circumcision? Where did the church ever come up with a priesthood? Where did the church ever come up with ceremony and ritual and symbolism? Where did the church ever come up with the idea that we should reintroduce mystery by speaking in a language that the people there couldn’t understand? And we replace preaching with ritual?
From the formation of the church in those early centuries to the system of Roman Catholicism, all the trappings fit Old Testament Judaism. And the hierarchical, institutional, nonpersonal, nonorganic, sacerdotal approach to the church, Diprose traces largely to the influence of causing the church to be the new Israel. Replacement theology justifies bringing in all the trappings of Judaism.
Another effect of replacement theology is the damage it does to Jewish evangelism. Here’s a little scenario. Someone is talking to a Jew and saying, “Jesus is the Messiah.”
“Really; where’s the kingdom?”
“Oh, it’s here.”
“Oh, it is? Well why are we being killed all the time? Why are we being persecuted and why don’t we have the land that was promised to us? And why isn’t the Messiah reigning in Jerusalem, and why isn’t the peace and joy and gladness dominating the world? And why isn’t the desert blooming?”
“Oh no, you don’t understand. All that’s not going to happen. You see, the problem is you’re not God’s people anymore. We are.”
“Oh, I see. But this is the kingdom and Jews are being killed and hated and Jerusalem is under siege. This is the kingdom? If this is the kingdom, Jesus is not the Messiah. Can’t be. It’s ludicrous.”
No matter how many wonderful Jewish-Christian relationships we try to have with rabbis, this is a huge bone in the throat. Why can’t Jesus be the Messiah? Because this isn’t the kingdom. Unless we can say to a Jew, “God will keep every single promise He made to you, and Jesus will fulfill every single promise. And that is why there are still Jews in the world, and that is why Jews are in the land and God is preparing for a great day of salvation in Israel. And Jesus is your Messiah. But look at Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Zechariah 12:10 and understand that He had to come and die to ratify the New covenant before He could forgive sin—but the kingdom is coming.”
That we have a chance to communicate. The rest doesn’t make sense. Now if we get election right—the divine, sovereign, gracious, unconditional, unilateral, irrevocable election—then we get God right. And we get Israel right. And we get eschatology right. And guess what?—then we can just open our Bibles and preach our hearts out of the text and say what it says. We don’t have to scramble around and find some bizarre interpretation.
Get it right and God is glorified. Get it right and Christ is exalted. Get it right and the Holy Spirit is honored. Get it right and Scripture is clear. Get it right and the greatest historical illustration of God’s work in the world is visible. Get it right and the meaning of mystery in the New Testament is maintained. Get it right and normal language is intact—Scripture wasn’t written for mystics. Get it right and the chronology of prophetic literature is intact. Get it right and we shut out imagination from exegesis. Get it right and the historical worldview is complete. Get it right and the practical benefit of eschatology is released for our people. Get it right.
Kingdom theology of the eschaton is the only view that honors sovereign, electing grace; honors the truthfulness of God’s promises; honors the teaching of the Old Testament prophets and the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament writers, which will allow Christ to be honored as supreme ruler over His creation, now temporarily in the hands of Satan. And the earthly, millennial kingdom, established at Christ’s return, is the only and necessary bridge from temporary human history to eternal divine glory. Let’s make our churches second coming churches and make our lives second coming lives.