Category Archives: Eschatology

Doctrine of “Last Things” / Final Things

Rock Your Worldview: The Institutes of Biblical Law

Biblical Law, Eschatology, Government, Reconstructionism, Reformed Theology, Theonomy

If there is one book that I can honestly say took my nascent Reformed faith and shifted it into theological overdrive, it was R.J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law (1973, Craig Press).  This single volume is considered by many to be Reconstructionism’s “founding document” and its most cogent, erudite statement of what it believes.

When I first picked up a used copy of Rushdoony’s Institutes in late 1989 and began reading it in early 1990, I had already been questioning and shedding my Arminian, Dispensationalist, Fundamentalist, Pentecostal views.  A refugee of the televangelist wars of the mid-80s and a former follower of “defrocked” Gospel crusader Jimmy Swaggart, I had begun to read some of the Puritans and other Calvinist writers and was slowly becoming attracted to (what appeared to me) the rock-solid stability and doctrinal consistency of the Reformed faith.

Believe me, after the deflating disappointment of Edgar Whisenant’s failed prediction of Christ’s return and the Rapture of the Church in 1988, I was ready for a BIG change in my evangelical worldview, as well as in my eschatology.

Rushdoony’s book was not immediately appealing to me.  Too academic, too dry, too intellectually dense.  My tastes leaned more towards fervent, devotional, pietistic reading and teaching.  That began to change.

As I started reading, I began to change my entire Christian outlook.  Or, I should say, GOD began to change my entire Christian outlook. (That darned sovereignty thing again!)  The Institutes of Biblical Law became a theological lifeline.  Christianity took on flesh and bone and a more extensively (and intensively) “mission-critical” significance. The Scriptures became a flood where they once were only a creek.

Anyway, one thing led to another and this book introduced me to a host of other like-minded, Reformed/Reconstructionist writers, including Dr. Gary North.

It is not for the faint-of-heart, though. This is nearly 900 pages of high-octane, high-protein, heavy-duty reading.  But, for a well-grounded, scripturally and historically informed understanding of biblical law, this is the one to read. The book is structured according to the Decalogue: an introductory section on the Importance of the Law followed by ten chapters, one on each of the Ten Commandments, then separate chapters on the Promises of Law, the Law in the Old Testament, the Law in the New Testament, the Church, the Law in Western Society, and several appendices, three of which were written by Gary North.

If you want what is probably the most astute introduction to biblical law and Christian Reconstruction, Institutes is still available in hardcover from the Chalcedon Foundation, Amazon, and possibly from other resellers used.  It can also be viewed online here.

Israel and the Church: Two Sides of the Same Coin–or Two Different Coins?

Biblical Languages, Dispensationalism, Greek, Hebrew, Israel, Premillennialism, Prophecy, Reformed Theology, The Church

Does the Bible teach an Israel-Church distinction?

Gary Demar says NO.

Back when I cut my spiritual teeth as a fairly new Christian in the mid-1980s (when I was in my early 20s), dispensationalism and premillennialism were all the rage. In fact, in my Pentecostal-Fundamentalist world, they were running at a fever pitch.  Books, tapes, prophetic conferences, radio, TV, evangelistic ministries, etc., were all talking about the “end times”, the “last days”, the coming Rapture, imminent return of Christ to the earth and the Great Tribulation.

One theme that kept cropping up was what the Bible had to say about Israel in “prophecy” as it relates to what it says about the Church in prophecy, and especially the (apparent) scriptural divide that exists between “the Church”–meaning God’s New Testament body of Christian believers–and “Israel”–meaning God’s Old Testament body of Jewish believers.

In standard dispensational-premillennial theology, these two entities are not the same, and they never will be.  The Church, since the day of Pentecost and the book of Acts, has been and always will be a New Testament phenomenon.  The nation of Israel has been and always will be an ethnically-genetically-geographically-defined group of Old Testament-centric folks who are the physical descendants of Abraham.  And ne’er the twain shall meet, except in heaven, and in the coming earthly, literal “millennial” kingdom (and, of course, in “heretical” Covenant/Reformed theology!)

The crux of the confusion surrounding this controversy involves what the Bible says about the Church and Israel, and hinges on its use of the word “church.”

Church (“ekklesia”) was not a new word invented in the 1st century A.D by Greek-speaking writers of the New Testament to describe believers in Christ in any exclusive sense.

Rather, Ekklesia was a word that had already been in common usage “for several hundred years before the Christian era” in a much more broad, inclusive sense.  Hence,…

There is no Church-Israel distinction in the Bible because the Greek word ekklēsia is not an invention of the New Testament writers. Ekklēsia is a common word that is used to describe an assembly or congregation. It is used this way in the Greek translation of the Old Testament — the Septuagint (LXX) — and the Greek New Testament. This common word is use by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel (the most Jewish of the gospels):

  • “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church [ekklēsia]; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matt. 16:18).[3]
  • “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church [ekklēsia]; and if he refuses to listen even to the church [ekklēsia], let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt. 18:17).

It was a very generically used word that could apply to both O.T. and N.T. assemblies of God’s people.  Moreover, “promises made to Old Testament Israel are said to be fulfilled in the so-called church age” to New Testament believers.

“For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, andthey shall be My people. . . . And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,’ says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:16, 18). How can this be when Paul is citing a verse that originally applied to Israel? How can the church be the temple? The temple is strictly Jewish. Second Corinthians 6:18 is a direct citation of Exodus 29:45: “And I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God.” Then there is the statement to the Corinthian ekklēsiato “come out from their midst and be separate.” This, too, is an Old Testament reference to Israel, as is the reference not to touch “what is unclean” (2 Cor. 6:17b; Isa. 52:11). Finally, Paul tells the Corinthians that God will be a Father to them, and they will be “sons and daughters” to Him (2 Cor. 6:18). Once again, Paul draws on passages that were first applied to Israel (Isa. 43:6; Hosea 1:10).

Demar’s point is that Scripture makes no distinction between Israel and the Church, they’re one and the same, but that dispensationalism MUST make this distinction in order to harmonize its teachings with the Bible.

To read the full article, click here.

http://americanvision.org/5637/does-the-bible-teach-an-israel-church-distinction/

FREE! 31-Volume Economic Commentary on the Bible by Gary North

Economics, Postmillennialism, Reconstructionism, Theology, Theonomy
Gary North’s magnum opus, a comprehensive economic commentary on the Bible is finished.  It is available online, all 31 volumes, for free, for a time.  FREE!  No cost.  No charge.  Right now, he is putting them out via his website one by one, offering them as a “free weekly book.” You can download them to your hard drive, as much as you want, to your heart’s content.  No cost.  No charge.Gary will keep them online for free until Dec. 31, 2012.  The reason he is doing this?  He wants feedback between now and then.  At this stage in the development of the commentaries, all that remains is final “polishing of the text” which he is doing, and final proofreading, with corrections as needed.  That’s where you and I come in.  He wants feedback from his readers.  Mainly what he wants is for folks to download and read his commentaries and then e-mail their responses to him to let him know if there are any typos, factual errors, faulty biblical citations, etc., that need to be addressed.Then, after the end of this year, on Jan. 1, 2013, he says he will take the entire commentary offline and begin the process of making a “new and improved” version of the 31-volume set available on CD-ROM shortly thereafter, exactly 40 years after he began working on this project.  He will then sell the finished product on CD, for a price (for “a lot more than zero”!).

If you want to take advantage of this FREE offer, you have until New Year’s Eve 2012.  After that, the principles of Austrian economics kick in and the set will no longer be free. So, act now.

You can start here.  With the book of Genesis.