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This is from Kim Riddlebarger's book of the same title. This is his closing comments in the preface to the updated publishing. I started this for two purposes.
1. To encourage folks interrested in the various eschatological positions, to read his book.
2. To also encourage folks who may not have, to look more closely at the Amillennial POV.
IMO, brother Kim does an exceptionally honest and fair look at all of the positions and comparing them to scripture very carefully along the way. You may not agree with him, but I can guarantee you will learn more about your own position juxtaposed against the others.
Iron sharpens iron.
________________________
In the case of Israel, God established his covenant with the nation at Mount Sinai. While this covenant was based on the works principle established under the original covenant of works (blessing promised for perfect obedience and curse threatened for any disobedience), this covenant was administered to Israel as part of the covenant of grace. This can be seen in the fact that God gave to Israel a priesthood, animal sacrifices, and a tabernacle (and then a temple) to relieve their guilt of sin and to instruct them about the coming Messiah and the nature of his saving work. This explains the typology present through the Sinai covenant and its temple, priesthood, etc.
When the nation of Israel comes under God’s covenant curses because of their repeated disobedience and lack of repentance, and the nation is first cast from the land during the Babylonian captivity and then again after the events of AD 70, this has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that God has his elect believers among the Israelites (and who are, under the terms of the covenant of grace, saved by grace through faith in the promised Messiah), even though the nation of which they were citizens (Israel) came under God’s covenant curse threatened in the covenant sanctions established at Sinai. Israel’s possession of the land of promise, therefore, was part of a national covenant and was conditioned upon national obedience. The New Testament writers are clear (much to the dispensationalist’s dismay) that the everlasting land promise God made to Abraham is now fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is the true Israel. This becomes clear when Paul universalizes the Abrahamic promise of a land in Palestine now extending to the ends of the earth (Rom. 4:13). Abraham is now depicted as heir of the world.
Therefore, to tie God’s choice of Israel to serve a critical role in redemptive history (as recipients of the Sinai covenant) to God’s choice of those particular individuals whom he chooses to save (“sovereign election,” to use MacArthur’s phrase) is to overlook a very important distinction made throughout the whole of the Bible. One might be part of the visible people of God yet not be a true believer, nor numbered among God’s elect. This is the classical distinction between the visible and the invisible church. To paraphrase Paul in Romans 9:6, “Not all Israel is Israel.” Yet, says Paul, within national Israel (which receives and possesses the land based on obedience—Josh. 21:43), there is an elect remnant according to grace (Rom. 11:5–6) whom God will indeed save through the merits of Jesus Christ received through faith alone. reface to the Expanded Edition P
So to argue as MacArthur and other dispensationalists do—that the Reformed view of the election of Israel to be God’s covenant nation is directly tied to God’s decree of those particular individuals whom he will save through faith in Jesus—does not reflect the historic Reformed position. The basis for MacArthur’s claim is the unfortunate conflation of Israel’s divinely ordained role in redemptive history with God’s sovereign choice of those individuals whom he intends to save. This reflects the dispensationalist’s rejection of covenant theology as expressed throughout the Reformed tradition and confessions and illustrates an unfortunate willingness to discuss sovereign election in the abstract—apart from the biblical means and redemptive-historical context in which God saves his elect sinners (i.e., the covenants of works and grace) as these covenants unfold in biblical history.
Unless and until these hermeneutical differences between covenant theologians and dispensationalists are resolved, Reformed amillenarians and dispensationalists are not going to agree about Israel’s role in redemptive history, nor will we agree about the way in which the New Testament reinterprets the Old in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ and the dawn of the messianic age. This is why I hope the debate will continue and why I ask you, the reader, to weigh these matters with both an open mind and a well-worn Bible. It is my prayer that this expanded edition of A Case for Amillennialism will help you do exactly that.
1. To encourage folks interrested in the various eschatological positions, to read his book.
2. To also encourage folks who may not have, to look more closely at the Amillennial POV.
IMO, brother Kim does an exceptionally honest and fair look at all of the positions and comparing them to scripture very carefully along the way. You may not agree with him, but I can guarantee you will learn more about your own position juxtaposed against the others.
Iron sharpens iron.
________________________
In the case of Israel, God established his covenant with the nation at Mount Sinai. While this covenant was based on the works principle established under the original covenant of works (blessing promised for perfect obedience and curse threatened for any disobedience), this covenant was administered to Israel as part of the covenant of grace. This can be seen in the fact that God gave to Israel a priesthood, animal sacrifices, and a tabernacle (and then a temple) to relieve their guilt of sin and to instruct them about the coming Messiah and the nature of his saving work. This explains the typology present through the Sinai covenant and its temple, priesthood, etc.
When the nation of Israel comes under God’s covenant curses because of their repeated disobedience and lack of repentance, and the nation is first cast from the land during the Babylonian captivity and then again after the events of AD 70, this has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that God has his elect believers among the Israelites (and who are, under the terms of the covenant of grace, saved by grace through faith in the promised Messiah), even though the nation of which they were citizens (Israel) came under God’s covenant curse threatened in the covenant sanctions established at Sinai. Israel’s possession of the land of promise, therefore, was part of a national covenant and was conditioned upon national obedience. The New Testament writers are clear (much to the dispensationalist’s dismay) that the everlasting land promise God made to Abraham is now fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is the true Israel. This becomes clear when Paul universalizes the Abrahamic promise of a land in Palestine now extending to the ends of the earth (Rom. 4:13). Abraham is now depicted as heir of the world.
Therefore, to tie God’s choice of Israel to serve a critical role in redemptive history (as recipients of the Sinai covenant) to God’s choice of those particular individuals whom he chooses to save (“sovereign election,” to use MacArthur’s phrase) is to overlook a very important distinction made throughout the whole of the Bible. One might be part of the visible people of God yet not be a true believer, nor numbered among God’s elect. This is the classical distinction between the visible and the invisible church. To paraphrase Paul in Romans 9:6, “Not all Israel is Israel.” Yet, says Paul, within national Israel (which receives and possesses the land based on obedience—Josh. 21:43), there is an elect remnant according to grace (Rom. 11:5–6) whom God will indeed save through the merits of Jesus Christ received through faith alone. reface to the Expanded Edition P
So to argue as MacArthur and other dispensationalists do—that the Reformed view of the election of Israel to be God’s covenant nation is directly tied to God’s decree of those particular individuals whom he will save through faith in Jesus—does not reflect the historic Reformed position. The basis for MacArthur’s claim is the unfortunate conflation of Israel’s divinely ordained role in redemptive history with God’s sovereign choice of those individuals whom he intends to save. This reflects the dispensationalist’s rejection of covenant theology as expressed throughout the Reformed tradition and confessions and illustrates an unfortunate willingness to discuss sovereign election in the abstract—apart from the biblical means and redemptive-historical context in which God saves his elect sinners (i.e., the covenants of works and grace) as these covenants unfold in biblical history.
Unless and until these hermeneutical differences between covenant theologians and dispensationalists are resolved, Reformed amillenarians and dispensationalists are not going to agree about Israel’s role in redemptive history, nor will we agree about the way in which the New Testament reinterprets the Old in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ and the dawn of the messianic age. This is why I hope the debate will continue and why I ask you, the reader, to weigh these matters with both an open mind and a well-worn Bible. It is my prayer that this expanded edition of A Case for Amillennialism will help you do exactly that.
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