{"id":1230,"date":"2012-06-11T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.totellyouthetruth.net\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2012-06-11T07:00:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T12:00:12","slug":"an-amillennial-rebuttal-to-dispensationalism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/?p=1230","title":{"rendered":"An Amillennial Rebuttal to Dispensationalism 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Christological Focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the greatest challenge (and the greatest privilege) in preaching the Old Testament is finding the way that it points to Christ and bringing that to the congregation in a way that clearly honors the Old Testament passage and makes much of Christ. This is not a call for importing some artificial connection to Jesus whenever we preach. Just the opposite. This calls for understanding and expositing the specific ways in which Old Testament passages point to Christ. But it does presuppose, based on Jesus\u2019 own words in John 5 and Luke 24, that every passage of the Old Testament does indeed point to him.1<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is very true national Israel lies at the heart of all biblical eschatology and covenants, the Old Testament promises made to national Israel are the hermeneutical center of Scripture. However, Scripture Itself does not leave this principle where Dispensationalists plant their feet. The New Testament (see the book of Matthew) goes to great lengths to show that Jesus Himself fulfills all of the promises made to national Israel. Matthew explains that Jesus is very much an Israelite, He is very much the Son of David, presenting Jesus as the representative of all of Israel, thereby Christ’s rightful place in Scripture is the center.<\/p>\n

1). Isaiah\u2019s servant songs have a double referent that has long baffled Jewish commentators. On the one hand, they refer to Israel, God\u2019s chosen one and servant (Isaiah 41:8-9; 44:1-2, 21; 45:4; 49:3). On the other, they seem also to refer to some individual (Isaiah 42:1-4). These prophecies are interpreted by the New Testament as referring to Christ (Matthew 8:17 and Acts 8:30-35)<\/p>\n

2). Matthew sees a double referent in Hosea 11:1, (“Out of Egypt I called my son” Matthew 2:15)<\/p>\n

3). Paul identifies Christ, not physical Israel, as Abraham\u2019s seed (Galatians 3:16). Galatians 3:7 and Romans 4:11, 16, moreover, identifies the church as Abraham\u2019s offspring.<\/p>\n

4). Henceforth, we are in Christ the true Israel: Galatians 3:26-29, Romans 2:28-29, and Philippians 3:3.<\/p>\n

5). The Old Covenant is obsolete, having been superseded by the New: Hebrews 8:8-12 identifies the new covenant with Israel (Jeremiah 31:33-34) with the covenant instituted by Christ with the church. Most importantly, Hebrews 8:13 declares the old covenant obsolete and passing away. This makes impossible the dispensational view of Ezekiel 40-48 as a reinstitution of temple sacrifice.<\/p>\n

6). The upshot is that the Old Testament did not see how its own prophecies were to be fulfilled – indeed, it could not prior to Christ. The New Testament authors were able to interpret the Old Testament in the light of His coming of the new covenant that He instituted. So should we2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

This means that Jesus is the true Israel, and that all Scripture\u2013especially its prophetic sections\u2013must be read through a Christ-centered hermeneutic, not a dispensational one which centers upon national Israel3<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong>
\n1<\/sup>The Greatest Challenge and Privilege of OT Preaching<\/a> by Mike Bullmore Senior Pastor of CrossWay Community Church in Bristol, Wisconsin.
\n2<\/sup>Amillennialism<\/a> by Prof. Robert B. Strimple – The Mountain Retreat<\/em>.
\n3<\/sup>\u201cJohn MacArthur on Calvinism, Dispensationalism, Israel and Hermeneutics: A Few Comments<\/a> by Kim Riddlebarger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Christological Focus But the greatest challenge (and the greatest privilege) in preaching the Old Testament is finding the way that it points to Christ and bringing that to the congregation in a way that clearly honors the Old Testament passage and makes much of Christ. This is not a call for importing some artificial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[60],"tags":[115,186],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hermeneutics","tag-amillennialism","tag-dispensationalism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3hM8I-jQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davecruver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}