Frank Maguire
ZION: biblical or merely political: the evil of replacement theology (Part Two)
By Frank Maguire
"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom." Charles Spurgeon
"That the members of the (Arizona) House of Representatives stand in support of Israel as a beacon of democracy, reject any attempts to 'delegitimize' the Nation of Israel, and proclaim that all countries should recognize Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself and its people." http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/50leg/2r/bills/hr2008h.pdf
"The reverse mistake is the foolishness that we don't need to learn anything about the Jewish history or culture; we can cut the Old Testament from our Bibles because it has nothing to say to us. To the contrary, For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope (Romans 15:4) And of course, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) The people who read the Sermon on the Mount and think Jesus was a hippie don't have the context of the Old Testament. They're just as lost as the Judaizers." "It's Jesus, not Yeshua," by Dan Popp http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/popp/150608
I have a dear lady friend who lives in Boise, ID. Our initial acquaintance came when she commented upon an article I had written in RenewAmerican.com. Her perceptive comments made it clear that she is intelligent, well educated, and, best of all, forthright.
Further counsel from her over these past few years make me recall the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The brilliant, self-assured Mr. Franklin was commiserating with a friend bemoaning his perception that he was not well liked...that persons preferred to avoid him.
The friend – his valuable forthright friend – said to Franklin that his highly opinionated and intolerant-of-disagreement mien discouraged persons from being in his presence.
A suggestion was made by Franklin's friend-confidante. To wit! "Benjamin, I think that if you would, instead of acting in seeming hostility, simply say 'Your ideas are very interesting, but have you ever thought about it this way?'"
Mr. Franklin took the advice of his counseling friend, employed it and found that it worked like a charm. The great man who was well aware that the cognitive processes of the human species involved "perception" (how an individual sees things by virtue of his/her own experience), "communication" (the habit-formed style of verbal and written association), "reasoning" (the specifically individualistic way a person has learned to reason). Plato separated true belief from "justified true belief."
A recent communication between and my lady friend in Boise focused upon "Gnosticism." She made some perceptive statements that indicated to me that she was concerned with Gnosticism and epistemology. My friend is a Mormon and I am a product of a Roman Catholic education, and a subsequent Southern Baptist schooling that convinced me that the Bible is, in entirety, God's inerrant, infallible, immutable Word – that which Jesus taught and preached to His disciples.
I wasted no time in searching for how confirmed gnostics defined gnosticism. I was led to a web-site on "Religious Tolerance" described and defined by the "Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance." http://www.religioustolerance.org/
In the first paragraph on the ancient and modern beliefs and practices of gnosticism I read "There (is) a broad range of beliefs among the various independent Gnostic systems or schools. However, the following points are believed to be generally accurate throughout the movement."
The "Religious Tolerance" gnostics are concerned with epistemology – with religious beliefs. "They believed that they alone truly understood Christ's message, and that other streams of thought within Christianity had misinterpreted Jesus' mission and sayings."
Their dissertation is too lengthy to detail. So, here, I suggest that interested readers access the Religious Tolerance web-site and give it a thorough reading. Also access the interrelated material in "Ouroboros." http://www.religioustolerance.org/
On June 7, I watched "Grace to You," offered by pastor John MacArthur, author of "Lordship Salvation." MacArthur was teaching on Grace. It was entirely in keeping with fundamental belief in God's word. I am an unashamed Bible fundamentalist. But here I offer a caution. I received my degrees from a Southern Baptist college. It was there that I heard repeated, as fundamental truth, over and over, that every word in the Bible is God's Truth. I had no trouble with this, and had no trouble believing it. It just seemed to come naturally to me.
Then there came a problem that surprised me. A group of underclassmen at the college applied to the administration to be allowed to organize a pro-life in the Student Union. They were denied by both the administration and a number of the faculty. The reason given for denial was that "abortion is a political issue, and nowhere in the Bible is abortion explicitly forbidden." Talk about irony?
I immediately recognized the error committed by those who professed an understanding of Scripture but possessed insufficient Grace to perceive all of the Scripture that implicitly assigns the sovereignty of human life to Creator God. Who, then, could not understand that the homicide of an innocent baby in the womb of the pregnant female is a blasphemous presumption of Man's authority over God?
If you have read my Part One of Israel and Zion I promised to present some of the Old Testament and New Testament references to Zion, which you will find below.
There is a movement, now, called New Evangelicals. Those of this movement – preachers, teachers, theologians – hold to "Replacement Theology." Again, readers, this is too complex to go into here. Interested readers, you'll have to do your own homework. Other than expressing the error that replacement theologians believe that the Old Testament is irrelevant to the New Testament, I suggest that their thinking amounts to a new-gnosticism...to a knowledge based upon speculation that suits their own narrow, parochial purposes.
So, as promised in Part One, I include a number of Scriptural verses that affirm to me that Zion is God's earthly home, and Jerusalem His holy city, and the Jews are His chosen people through whom He provides His knowledge to the gentiles.
*******************************************************************
"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isaiah 35:10
"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord." Zechariah 2:10
"But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loves. He built His sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which He has founded forever. H chose David (whom Jesus has declared was a man after God's own heart [fm]) and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people. Israel his inheritance." Psalm 78-68 fwd.
"Blessed are you whose strength is in you, in you whose heart are the highways to Zion." Psalm 84:5
"And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written. 'The deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'" Romans 11:26
"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'" Matthew 21:5
"The voice of your watchmen – they lift up their voice; together they shall sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion." Isaiah 52:8
"Who has heard such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children." Isaiah 66:8
"Then I looked and behold, on Mt. Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." Revelation 14:1
"And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion 'You are my people.'" Isaiah 51:16
"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels in festal gathering." Hebrews 12:22
"As it is written, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense: and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." Romans 9:33
Paul wrote "As it is written," using the same words spoken by Jesus when he denied Lucifer who offered Jesus the whole world if He would accept him. "It is written."
I have presented sufficient, to me, evidence against the new gnostics of replacement theology. Perhaps I have convinced some of my readers. I have no expectations that I will convince all. As my dear, old hoosier (that's Indiana) pastor Bill Archer said often, "Don't take my word on it. Check it all out in the Bible."
And read it all as did C. S. Lewis who setting-out to prove that there is no God promised himself that he would read Scripture not as a skeptical denier but as a believer. Thus, God graced Lewis with faith in Him.
June 10, 2015
"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom." Charles Spurgeon
"That the members of the (Arizona) House of Representatives stand in support of Israel as a beacon of democracy, reject any attempts to 'delegitimize' the Nation of Israel, and proclaim that all countries should recognize Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself and its people." http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/50leg/2r/bills/hr2008h.pdf
"The reverse mistake is the foolishness that we don't need to learn anything about the Jewish history or culture; we can cut the Old Testament from our Bibles because it has nothing to say to us. To the contrary, For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope (Romans 15:4) And of course, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) The people who read the Sermon on the Mount and think Jesus was a hippie don't have the context of the Old Testament. They're just as lost as the Judaizers." "It's Jesus, not Yeshua," by Dan Popp http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/popp/150608
I have a dear lady friend who lives in Boise, ID. Our initial acquaintance came when she commented upon an article I had written in RenewAmerican.com. Her perceptive comments made it clear that she is intelligent, well educated, and, best of all, forthright.
Further counsel from her over these past few years make me recall the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The brilliant, self-assured Mr. Franklin was commiserating with a friend bemoaning his perception that he was not well liked...that persons preferred to avoid him.
The friend – his valuable forthright friend – said to Franklin that his highly opinionated and intolerant-of-disagreement mien discouraged persons from being in his presence.
A suggestion was made by Franklin's friend-confidante. To wit! "Benjamin, I think that if you would, instead of acting in seeming hostility, simply say 'Your ideas are very interesting, but have you ever thought about it this way?'"
Mr. Franklin took the advice of his counseling friend, employed it and found that it worked like a charm. The great man who was well aware that the cognitive processes of the human species involved "perception" (how an individual sees things by virtue of his/her own experience), "communication" (the habit-formed style of verbal and written association), "reasoning" (the specifically individualistic way a person has learned to reason). Plato separated true belief from "justified true belief."
A recent communication between and my lady friend in Boise focused upon "Gnosticism." She made some perceptive statements that indicated to me that she was concerned with Gnosticism and epistemology. My friend is a Mormon and I am a product of a Roman Catholic education, and a subsequent Southern Baptist schooling that convinced me that the Bible is, in entirety, God's inerrant, infallible, immutable Word – that which Jesus taught and preached to His disciples.
I wasted no time in searching for how confirmed gnostics defined gnosticism. I was led to a web-site on "Religious Tolerance" described and defined by the "Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance." http://www.religioustolerance.org/
In the first paragraph on the ancient and modern beliefs and practices of gnosticism I read "There (is) a broad range of beliefs among the various independent Gnostic systems or schools. However, the following points are believed to be generally accurate throughout the movement."
The "Religious Tolerance" gnostics are concerned with epistemology – with religious beliefs. "They believed that they alone truly understood Christ's message, and that other streams of thought within Christianity had misinterpreted Jesus' mission and sayings."
Their dissertation is too lengthy to detail. So, here, I suggest that interested readers access the Religious Tolerance web-site and give it a thorough reading. Also access the interrelated material in "Ouroboros." http://www.religioustolerance.org/
On June 7, I watched "Grace to You," offered by pastor John MacArthur, author of "Lordship Salvation." MacArthur was teaching on Grace. It was entirely in keeping with fundamental belief in God's word. I am an unashamed Bible fundamentalist. But here I offer a caution. I received my degrees from a Southern Baptist college. It was there that I heard repeated, as fundamental truth, over and over, that every word in the Bible is God's Truth. I had no trouble with this, and had no trouble believing it. It just seemed to come naturally to me.
Then there came a problem that surprised me. A group of underclassmen at the college applied to the administration to be allowed to organize a pro-life in the Student Union. They were denied by both the administration and a number of the faculty. The reason given for denial was that "abortion is a political issue, and nowhere in the Bible is abortion explicitly forbidden." Talk about irony?
I immediately recognized the error committed by those who professed an understanding of Scripture but possessed insufficient Grace to perceive all of the Scripture that implicitly assigns the sovereignty of human life to Creator God. Who, then, could not understand that the homicide of an innocent baby in the womb of the pregnant female is a blasphemous presumption of Man's authority over God?
If you have read my Part One of Israel and Zion I promised to present some of the Old Testament and New Testament references to Zion, which you will find below.
There is a movement, now, called New Evangelicals. Those of this movement – preachers, teachers, theologians – hold to "Replacement Theology." Again, readers, this is too complex to go into here. Interested readers, you'll have to do your own homework. Other than expressing the error that replacement theologians believe that the Old Testament is irrelevant to the New Testament, I suggest that their thinking amounts to a new-gnosticism...to a knowledge based upon speculation that suits their own narrow, parochial purposes.
So, as promised in Part One, I include a number of Scriptural verses that affirm to me that Zion is God's earthly home, and Jerusalem His holy city, and the Jews are His chosen people through whom He provides His knowledge to the gentiles.
*******************************************************************
"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isaiah 35:10
"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord." Zechariah 2:10
"But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loves. He built His sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which He has founded forever. H chose David (whom Jesus has declared was a man after God's own heart [fm]) and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people. Israel his inheritance." Psalm 78-68 fwd.
"Blessed are you whose strength is in you, in you whose heart are the highways to Zion." Psalm 84:5
"And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written. 'The deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'" Romans 11:26
"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'" Matthew 21:5
"The voice of your watchmen – they lift up their voice; together they shall sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion." Isaiah 52:8
"Who has heard such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children." Isaiah 66:8
"Then I looked and behold, on Mt. Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." Revelation 14:1
"And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion 'You are my people.'" Isaiah 51:16
"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels in festal gathering." Hebrews 12:22
"As it is written, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense: and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." Romans 9:33
Paul wrote "As it is written," using the same words spoken by Jesus when he denied Lucifer who offered Jesus the whole world if He would accept him. "It is written."
I have presented sufficient, to me, evidence against the new gnostics of replacement theology. Perhaps I have convinced some of my readers. I have no expectations that I will convince all. As my dear, old hoosier (that's Indiana) pastor Bill Archer said often, "Don't take my word on it. Check it all out in the Bible."
And read it all as did C. S. Lewis who setting-out to prove that there is no God promised himself that he would read Scripture not as a skeptical denier but as a believer. Thus, God graced Lewis with faith in Him.
- http://www.lionlamb.com/articles_jewishlife6.php
- http://www.lamblion.us/2013/12/the-evil-of-replacement-theology_27.html
- http://www.lamblion.us/2013/12/the-evil-of-replacement-theology_23.html
- http://www.lamblion.us/2013/12/the-evil-of-replacement-theology_26.html
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