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JillD
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| First Name: | Jill | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | heathen, EvFree, Messianic, LC-MS, Catholic 2007 |
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Posted: Sat May 3rd, 2008 10:56 pm |
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I'm just finishing up Carl Olson's book "Will Catholics Be 'Left Behind'?" and it's cleared up a lot of questions that had been posed to me by my dispensationalist friends. I wasn't sure what they were talking about, though I'd held those views about 15 years ago and haven't thought much about them since.
One of the historical events that really jazzed the dispensationalists was the rebirth of Israel in 1948 - proof that their eschatology was correct. Olson made a strong case for why the CC sees itself as the 'New Israel,' but how does the CC view this rebirth of Israel? What role does/will it play in the future? Olson didn't address that in the book exactly.
Just like trying to understand a coherent soteriology in the Protestant Church made my head swim, made me shut my Bible in frustration, this eschatology stuff is even more fragmented, or so it seems to me. I guess because it's a case of trying to predict the future: anything goes! You're not proved wrong until a lot of time goes by and verses can be found and tweaked to support almost anything.
Olson's book has made me glad, once again, to be Catholic, but I'd love to have an answer to this question for WHEN (not 'if') it comes up in my discussions.
Thank you!
Jill
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"The alternative to obedience is to turn the conversation into a cacophony of Christians making it up as they go along." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 12:21 am |
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Olson made a strong case for why the CC sees itself as the 'New Israel,' but how does the CC view this rebirth of Israel?
The modern Israel is a secular state, an ethnic entity, not a religious one. This was of set purpose, since Hitler and Stalin cared not a whit what a Jew believed, but only that he was ethnically a Jew. Less than 20 percent of Israel’s population believes in God, let alone practices a religion.
What role does/will it play in the future? Olson didn't address that in the book exactly.
Nor, in my opinion, does he need to. From a religious standpoint, there isn’t enough there to make it worthwhile.
Most of the practicing Jews there are Orthodox; they are not interested in Christian eschatology, but in obeying God in the traditional way. The one concession they have made to the contemporary world is that where temple sacrifice is concerned, there is no going back. It will not happen again. In fact, I have heard this from all quarters of Judaism: the temple and its sacrifices belong to the past. What matters now is obedience (1 Samuel 15:22).
If you examine this viewpoint theologically, you will see that it is basically the same viewpoint as Protestant Christianity. However, the Catholic view, following ancient Judaism, embraces not either sacrifice or obedience, but both the one and the other. So we read of Christ that, “although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:8–9; cf. 1 Peter 2:9–10). If a Christian is called to be Christ-like, he must obey the Father and offer sacrifice in the same manner as Christ; that is, he must offer himself. Then, as he obeys the primary injunction of the Christian moral code (charity), he completes his assimilation into the body and person of Christ, “I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me” (John 17:23).
David
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tedjenczewski
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 01:46 am |
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| I am just finishing up Carl Olsen's book also. Now I feel I have some understanding of dispensationalism and the rapture teaching. Based on Carl's book, it appears to be a heresy because it denies that all believers are children of Abraham, and the church is the new Israel and the temple that is being built right now, in the present age, with Jesus as the cornerstone. St. Paul taught these things in Galatians. Dispensationalism also denies that the kingdom of God is at hand as taught by Jesus in the Gospels. They deny that the purpose of the old covenant was to prepare for the coming of Christ. They deny the church is the temple of God that is being built in this age. The promise to Irael is a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly kingdom as they believe. The reestablishment of Israel and the temple in Jerusalem as believed by the dispensationalists is a return to the old covenant and to sacrifices that cannot forgive sins. The rapture teaching also denys that tribulation will be encountered by the church in the end times, as taught by Jesus in Mathew ch. 24,25. Instead, they say the church will be rescued from all that suffering by the rapture.
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"...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1Tim 3, 15
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JillD
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 02:00 am |
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Thank you, David.
And, Ted, that's a good, quick summary of the main points of the book. I hope I can remember a lot of these details when I next have a conversation with one of my pretrib dispensational premillenial friends.
AcK! The terminology was a mouthful at times!
I also liked the way Olson pointed out the pessimism inherent in dispensationalism. God works, we fail. God works another way, we fail. Over and over.
In the Catholic mind, God is working things out for us and we have reason to hope. We may suffer tribulation, but the final state for all the faithful will make those trials seem small.
It was a fairly quick read as long as you skip the footnotes!
Jill
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"The alternative to obedience is to turn the conversation into a cacophony of Christians making it up as they go along." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
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tedjenczewski
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 02:25 am |
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| Interestingly, I found it a long, heavy read. I have been working on it for a month. What got me started was a TV sermon one Sunday by the pastor of a local baptist church. He launched into a sermon that started with the phrase "We take the bible literally and believe in the rapture". That was followed up by umpteen bible quotations supporting his thesis. He spewed them out so fast I could not begin to keep up, and probably none of his flock could either. So I read Paul Thigpen's book "The Rapture Trap" and Carl Olsen's book. Now I understand, ---- I understand what a huge heresy it is.
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"...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1Tim 3, 15
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 03:37 am |
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I also liked the way Olson pointed out the pessimism inherent in dispensationalism. God works, we fail. God works another way, we fail. Over and over.
The way I’ve read dispensationalism (certain strains, anyway) is that not only does man fail, but God fails as well. He has Plan A and Plan B, and he vacillates between the two because neither is working. In the end he returns to his original plan (so they say) and provides Israel an earthly victory — and who knows what happens to the Christians raptured out into Never-Never Land. It all seems sort of hollow after reading biblical verses like “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you.” Really, it sounds more like something out of The Watchtower, don’t you think?
David
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hpj0828
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 04:10 pm |
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There is a fine line between viewing the Church as "The New Israel" and "Replacement Theology." Replacement theology teaches that the church has replaced Israel. That all the promises of God to the physical descendents of Abraham no longer belong to them, but only to the believing, mostly Gentile, church. That there is no longer a destiny for the Jewish people and nation. This is a clear heresy and Jewish believers have to fight it constantly within the church.
The logical progression from this belief has been to declare the Jews as disenfranchised from God's grace, then accursed, then worthy of death... This path has led to the burning of Jews at the stake, the stealing of their homes, businesses and property; and the razing of synagogues throughout the long painful centuries of the past. All of this has been justified by a "Christian" theology!
We must constantly emphasize that this is NOT the teaching of the NT. Nor is it the teaching of the RCC:
From Nostrae Aetate, Pope Paul V1, 1965
"As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation,(9) nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading.(10) Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues-such is the witness of the Apostle.[Paul, cf. Rom 11](11) In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (Soph. 3:9).(12)
Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.
True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone."
Consider Romans 11:
1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel:
3 "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me"?
4 And what was God’s answer to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened,
8 as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day."
9 And David says: "May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling-block and a retribution for them.
10 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent for ever."
11 Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
12 But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fulness bring!
13 I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry
14 in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root,
18 do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in."
20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.
23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."
28 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs,
29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.
The time will yet come when Israel as a nation will turn as one man to belief in the Messiah and be grafted back into the olive tree Paul describes above.
The prophet Zechariah spoke of the day of the Lord:
Zech 12:9 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.
10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives,
13 the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives,
14 and all the rest of the clans and their wives.
Zech 13:1 "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
We who are Jewish believers in Jesus the Messiah look forward to the day when the scales fall from the eyes of our nation. A day in which we will realize with tragic awareness our Messiah whom we have rejected these many centuries. We will mourn and return to Him.
God's plans for us have not ended. We are not being replaced by the church. A destiny yet awaits us, mournful, yet wonderful. God's gracious choosing of us as a people will never be taken away!
Shalom!
Henry
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HPJ
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JillD
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 06:36 pm |
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Your teaching, Henry, provides a lovely balance betweent God's intentions for the Church and for Israel. What was described in that book concerning dispensationalism was a sort of "leap frog" deal: God dealt with Israel but they refused to believe, so instead, for the last 2000 years, He has dealt with the Church, but when He's done with the Church and they're raptured away, He'll come back and save Israel. I guess that's why they're so excited about the rebirth of the nation of Israel. God is getting ready to work with Israel again, so that must mean that the Church is on the verge of 'sayonara!'
I find this all rather complicated. So many competing viewpoints with so many fine shades of meaning.
Is there a good reason to be well-versed on this stuff other than to be able to answer the pre-trib folks? I'd rather just let God take care of all these details...
Jill
____________________
"The alternative to obedience is to turn the conversation into a cacophony of Christians making it up as they go along." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
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hpj0828
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Posted: Sun May 4th, 2008 08:32 pm |
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I think the main danger is that pretrib rapture people believe that the church will be raptured before the tribulation.
It has never been the way of God to remove his people from tribulation, but rather to be with them, as they go through tribulation. Even the 3 Jews who went into the fiery furnace were delivered through fire.
Many (primarily soft American) people are deluded into thinking that they will not have to suffer for their faith, because they'll be raptured out before the pain and suffering begin. This prevents them from preparing their souls for the trials to come:
Jn 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Christians in other countries have no such expectation. They may not notice the beginning of the "tribulation" period, since they are already giving their lives for Jesus.
H.
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HPJ
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Dave Armstrong
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Posted: Mon May 5th, 2008 07:16 pm |
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I'll post again my list of articles that Catholics can utilize in discussing these topics:
[ source ]
See the following articles (Carl Olson be da man!):
Five Myths About the Rapture (Carl E. Olson)
Lahaying the Rapture on Thick (Carl E. Olson)
Recycled Rapture (Carl E. Olson)
No Rapture for Rome: The Anti-Catholics behind the Best-selling Left Behind Books (Carl E. Olson)
The Rapture (Catholic Answers)
The Second Coming (John Salza)
Daniel, Revelation, and the Rapture Myth (Deacon Paul Carlson)
Questioning the "Left Behind" Rapture (David M. Bristow)
Endtimes, Millennium, Rapture (Colin B. Donovan, STL)
Last edited on Mon May 5th, 2008 07:17 pm by Dave Armstrong
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I'm happy to offer whatever theological & personal assistance I can. My blog, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, contains 1900+ papers & web pages (absolutely free) & 16 apologetic books (for sale):
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/
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