Has "Replacement" Theology Replaced the Gospel?
I have wanted to write on this subject for a while now, but I realize that there are lots of emotional responses that are bound up with hearing about "Replacement" theology. I remember the first time I heard about "Replacement" theology, a well known Bible teacher was booming about it's dangers and how we must support Israel in their pursuit to reclaim the land "that God gave them." At the time, I was far too young in the Lord to understand the full argument that was being made and all that comes with it, and I assumed that no Bible teacher would ever paint a picture of fellow believers that portrayed them to believe something they don't. I was completely naive to the fact that everyone has certain theological positions, and while propagating them, they have a tendency to misrepresent and caricature the other side of the argument.
In this post I want to share with you why I believe that those who teach against "Replacement" theology have had this same tendency, and so I want to share the other side of the story. So often we get really good at arguing for our position but remain completely ignorant of the competing positions, and that is a dangerous place to be because it causes us to stand in a corner or a camp without fully understanding why we are there. We cannot truly say that we believe in a particular theological position until we have actually studied the arguments for AND against the position. Then we must weigh the evidence in light of Scripture and allow our opinions and presuppositions (assumed beliefs or beliefs that we take for granted) to be corrected by the Word of God.
To begin I want to say "Replacement" theology is NOT an essential doctrine. The essentials are bound up with the truth of the gospel - the Trinity, the virgin birth, Christ's death, burial, resurrection, justification through faith alone, Christ's return to judge the living and the dead etc - so that if you take any one of these essentials away the gospel is changed. In Galatians Paul very clearly pronounces an "Anathema" (damning to hell for all eternity) on anyone who teaches a different gospel so we must never allow the gospel to be changed. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Paul gives us a snapshot of the gospel saying, "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures."
There is a common mistake these days to try to say that all Christian truth is 'gospel' truth, but this is a grave error and one that runs the risk of adding to the gospel. The gospel is specifically about Christ in His living, dying and saving work. We must not add peripheral doctrines about Israel and the land, eschatology (end times), positions on baptism, etc to change the gospel message because to do so is anathema, as we have seen.
With that framework laid, I now move on to an all too brief explanation of this hot button teaching.
As the name indicates, the key argument of Replacement theology (made by those that disagree with it) is the belief that the church has replaced Israel and now receives all the blessings that were once given to Israel. They argue that the covenant made with Abraham was an eternal covenant and so it cannot be changed or abrogated. A summary of the promises made to Abraham was that God was going to give him the land, offspring (descendants or seed), and that they would be a blessing to all nations. One of the main arguments for this position is that God cannot lie and must keep His promises, so He must give Abraham's descendants (the Jews), the land. Otherwise He is not faithful to His Word.
Another one of the cornerstone arguments for why this must be true is that we must interpret the Bible "literally" and to say that the church has inherited the blessings of Israel is to "spiritualize" the Bible. Since Genesis says that Abraham will "literally" inherit the land, and even gives dimensions as to what that land will look like, the promise must be fulfilled "literally" or else it is not truly fulfilled at all.
Certainly more could (and should) be said in filling out the arguments of those that say Replacement theology is bad or dangerous, but for the sake of brevity I will stop here and respond to three things already mentioned: 1) The accuracy of the name "Replacement" theology, 2) The Promises to Abraham, and 3) "Literal" interpretation.
First I want to point out that the name "Replacement" theology is something that is used by the opponents of the view and it begins the whole debate on the wrong foot. We should always give those that we disagree with (on non-essential issues - we must divide with those whose teachings change the gospel!), the benefit of the doubt and allow them to define their position in their own terms. While the essence of the name may be partially correct, the content gets lost. The problem is that no one that I have read holds to a simple straight line shifting of the promises from the Jews to the church. Also, a good number of theologians that would fall in this camp (though certainly not all) believe that God has brought the Jews back into the land because He is going to save many of them according to Romans 11, so the claims of antisemitism are sad rhetorical devices used to create emotional reactions. We should be seeking to bring clarity to the discussion rather than taking cheap shots.
Many of the theologians that I have read say a far better name would be "Expansion" theology because in the OT the only way to God was through the Jews (e.g. Ruth, Rahab etc.), but in the NT it is said that we all are one in Christ (Eph 2:11-22) and that He has "broke down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility." There has been an expansion in that now the risen Christ has sent His Spirit into the world to call people from every tribe, tongue, and language to come hear the gospel, repent and believe. Another example is that in the OT true worship was only possible in Jerusalem at the Temple, but now in the NT we see that Christ is the only way ("the way, truth and life" - John 14:6) to come to God, and according to John 4:23, "true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth...." The church has not replaced Israel, rather Israel was the only chosen people of God, but now the chosen have expanded to include "Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free." The point is that we need to be careful to fully and truly represent those that hold to a different position, and that has not been the case with this teaching.
Second, what about the promises made to Abraham? This is where the real crux of the debate lies, and the answers on both sides are controversial. To answer this question we need to address the "literal" interpretation piece, and allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. But before doing so I want to point out that the argument for God having to keep his promises "literally" is not as simple as it seems. As I mentioned above this is one of the key arguments against so-called "Replacement" theology, and I will use an illustration to show how this argument is reductionistic (vastly oversimplifying).
In 1895 a man promised his 5 year old son that when he turns 18 years old he is going to buy him a horse. The young boy is ecstatic and every year on his birthday he longs for that day, until finally it comes. He wakes up on his 18th birthday and he runs out to the barn to see his new horse. To his surprise there is no horse in the barn for him, but instead there is a brand new Ford Model T sitting in front of the barn. His father walks up behind him and says, "Happy birthday son!"
The question is, "Has the father broken his promise to his son?" If we want to be incredibly literal then yes he has. But it would seem better to say that the essence of the promise has been fulfilled in a far greater way than the boy could have ever dreamed. This is how I would argue we need to look at the promises to Abraham in Genesis, which moves us to the issue of "literal" interpretation.
As I mentioned, in a strictly literal sense, the promise to the boy was not fulfilled, but there is a far bigger story that helps us to understand why the Model T not only fulfilled the promise but also exceeded it. There was no such thing as a Model T when the father made the promise to the boy, the invention of the Model T has changed and expanded the options for fulfilling the promise. This, I will argue, is also how the Bible approaches the promises to Abraham.
To understand this we need to zoom way out and get an idea of the bigger picture that the Bible is unpacking for us. As the saying goes, "the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed" so we need to go to the New Testament to see how these promises were understood. I don't have time to do an in-depth study of how the NT speaks to the three key promises that were made to Abraham, but I will briefly speak to each one.
Most would agree that interpreting these promises "literally" is the best method, but we also need to recognize (as with the story of the boy) what other developments might cause us to expect the fulfillment to be more than what was initially expected. Here is how the New Testament authors speak about the seed, the land, and the blessing promises:
Galatians 3:16 says, "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ." Notice that the apostle Paul says of all the promises made to Abraham that they were to Abraham and to his 'offspring' and then he interprets that for us to be Christ. In other words, the Apostle Paul writing while inspired by the Holy Spirit tells us that the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled IN CHRIST! Christ is the true Offspring (seed or descendant depending on your translation) to whom the promises were made and in whom the promises would be fulfilled. Again, much more should be said, but I must press on.
In Gal 4:21-31 Paul uses an allegory to argue that Hagar (the mother of Ishmael, the son of the flesh) is associated with the present earthly Jerusalem, and that Sarah (the mother if Isaac, the son of promise) is associated with the heavenly Jerusalem. This would have infuriated Jews of his day because their whole claim was that they were Abraham's children through Isaac, which is why they had a claim to the land. But Paul spins the illustration on its head to prove his point: there is a far better "Jerusalem" to come, a heavenly Jerusalem.
Later John would write in Revelation 21:1-8 about the New Heaven and the New Earth saying, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (emphasis added) Here again we see that the old earth and old Jerusalem have passed away, and a New Earth and New Jerusalem come down from heaven. So, just as Paul had said that the true "children of Abraham" are to be associated with the heavenly Jerusalem, John sees the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, and it is the dwelling place of God with men.
So I ask, "If God has chosen to make the New Heavenly Jerusalem (the only truly eternal city because the old Jerusalem will pass away and hence cannot fulfill the eternal promises made to Abraham!) be the inheritance rather than the temporal and earthly Jerusalem, is He failing to fulfill His promise?" To quote Paul, "MAY IT NEVER BE!" God will fulfill the land promise in ways that were impossible for Abraham and his descendants to fully understand. However, Abraham did have some understanding that the land promise was for more than just the earthly city because Hebrews 11:10 says, "For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." Though Abraham certainly did not fully comprehend the glory that was to be revealed, even he understood that the promise was for an eternal city, and he looked forward to the true fulfillment.
The promise of being a blessing to all nations is spoken of in Acts 3:25-26 when Peter preaches after the lame beggar is healed saying, "You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” (emphasis added) You see, Peter claimed that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of blessing. Jesus was born a Jew of the tribe of Judah, so the Jews were a blessing to all nations BECAUSE Jesus was born a Jew and He is the true blessing to the nations of the earth.
When we zoom out and begin to see the larger story surrounding the promises to Abraham, it helps us to understand what God was doing. Has God failed to fulfill His promises to Abraham and the Jews by showing us in the New Testament that Jesus is the true blessing to all nations, and that Jesus is the true Offspring that came from Abraham's offspring? No, God is ALWAYS faithful to His promises, but He promised and delivered far, far more than was originally anticipated.
I am sure that not everyone will be persuaded by the arguments that I have laid out in this post, and that is totally fine. Again, this is a non-essential issue. (For more information on essential vs non-essential doctrines I'll refer you to this post: http://trevorbinkley.blogspot.com/2013/01/majoring-in-minors.html) As long as we are in agreement on the essentials and the unchangeable gospel, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And that means that we need to act like it. Sadly, far too many have used this issue to attack fellow believers by making comments like, "Those that hold to "Replacement" theology have left the faith." Frankly the people who say such things are in sin and they need to repent for causing division in the body of Christ.
Finally, I want to answer the question that the title of this post asks, "Has 'Replacement' theology replaced the gospel?" It grieves me to answer this question with a resounding, "Yes." In many churches today there is far more talking about the Jews being back in the land, and there is far more attention paid to the latest Middle East controversies than there is to weekly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Please, brothers and sisters, do not allow ANYTHING to take the place that the gospel should hold. The Bible is about the Jesus, the Son of God, so let's keep the focus on the truly main thing.
I welcome any questions or concerns regarding this post. Please feel free to email me at trevorjbinkley@gmail.com
In this post I want to share with you why I believe that those who teach against "Replacement" theology have had this same tendency, and so I want to share the other side of the story. So often we get really good at arguing for our position but remain completely ignorant of the competing positions, and that is a dangerous place to be because it causes us to stand in a corner or a camp without fully understanding why we are there. We cannot truly say that we believe in a particular theological position until we have actually studied the arguments for AND against the position. Then we must weigh the evidence in light of Scripture and allow our opinions and presuppositions (assumed beliefs or beliefs that we take for granted) to be corrected by the Word of God.
To begin I want to say "Replacement" theology is NOT an essential doctrine. The essentials are bound up with the truth of the gospel - the Trinity, the virgin birth, Christ's death, burial, resurrection, justification through faith alone, Christ's return to judge the living and the dead etc - so that if you take any one of these essentials away the gospel is changed. In Galatians Paul very clearly pronounces an "Anathema" (damning to hell for all eternity) on anyone who teaches a different gospel so we must never allow the gospel to be changed. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Paul gives us a snapshot of the gospel saying, "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures."
There is a common mistake these days to try to say that all Christian truth is 'gospel' truth, but this is a grave error and one that runs the risk of adding to the gospel. The gospel is specifically about Christ in His living, dying and saving work. We must not add peripheral doctrines about Israel and the land, eschatology (end times), positions on baptism, etc to change the gospel message because to do so is anathema, as we have seen.
With that framework laid, I now move on to an all too brief explanation of this hot button teaching.
As the name indicates, the key argument of Replacement theology (made by those that disagree with it) is the belief that the church has replaced Israel and now receives all the blessings that were once given to Israel. They argue that the covenant made with Abraham was an eternal covenant and so it cannot be changed or abrogated. A summary of the promises made to Abraham was that God was going to give him the land, offspring (descendants or seed), and that they would be a blessing to all nations. One of the main arguments for this position is that God cannot lie and must keep His promises, so He must give Abraham's descendants (the Jews), the land. Otherwise He is not faithful to His Word.
Another one of the cornerstone arguments for why this must be true is that we must interpret the Bible "literally" and to say that the church has inherited the blessings of Israel is to "spiritualize" the Bible. Since Genesis says that Abraham will "literally" inherit the land, and even gives dimensions as to what that land will look like, the promise must be fulfilled "literally" or else it is not truly fulfilled at all.
Certainly more could (and should) be said in filling out the arguments of those that say Replacement theology is bad or dangerous, but for the sake of brevity I will stop here and respond to three things already mentioned: 1) The accuracy of the name "Replacement" theology, 2) The Promises to Abraham, and 3) "Literal" interpretation.
First I want to point out that the name "Replacement" theology is something that is used by the opponents of the view and it begins the whole debate on the wrong foot. We should always give those that we disagree with (on non-essential issues - we must divide with those whose teachings change the gospel!), the benefit of the doubt and allow them to define their position in their own terms. While the essence of the name may be partially correct, the content gets lost. The problem is that no one that I have read holds to a simple straight line shifting of the promises from the Jews to the church. Also, a good number of theologians that would fall in this camp (though certainly not all) believe that God has brought the Jews back into the land because He is going to save many of them according to Romans 11, so the claims of antisemitism are sad rhetorical devices used to create emotional reactions. We should be seeking to bring clarity to the discussion rather than taking cheap shots.
Many of the theologians that I have read say a far better name would be "Expansion" theology because in the OT the only way to God was through the Jews (e.g. Ruth, Rahab etc.), but in the NT it is said that we all are one in Christ (Eph 2:11-22) and that He has "broke down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility." There has been an expansion in that now the risen Christ has sent His Spirit into the world to call people from every tribe, tongue, and language to come hear the gospel, repent and believe. Another example is that in the OT true worship was only possible in Jerusalem at the Temple, but now in the NT we see that Christ is the only way ("the way, truth and life" - John 14:6) to come to God, and according to John 4:23, "true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth...." The church has not replaced Israel, rather Israel was the only chosen people of God, but now the chosen have expanded to include "Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free." The point is that we need to be careful to fully and truly represent those that hold to a different position, and that has not been the case with this teaching.
Second, what about the promises made to Abraham? This is where the real crux of the debate lies, and the answers on both sides are controversial. To answer this question we need to address the "literal" interpretation piece, and allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. But before doing so I want to point out that the argument for God having to keep his promises "literally" is not as simple as it seems. As I mentioned above this is one of the key arguments against so-called "Replacement" theology, and I will use an illustration to show how this argument is reductionistic (vastly oversimplifying).
In 1895 a man promised his 5 year old son that when he turns 18 years old he is going to buy him a horse. The young boy is ecstatic and every year on his birthday he longs for that day, until finally it comes. He wakes up on his 18th birthday and he runs out to the barn to see his new horse. To his surprise there is no horse in the barn for him, but instead there is a brand new Ford Model T sitting in front of the barn. His father walks up behind him and says, "Happy birthday son!"
The question is, "Has the father broken his promise to his son?" If we want to be incredibly literal then yes he has. But it would seem better to say that the essence of the promise has been fulfilled in a far greater way than the boy could have ever dreamed. This is how I would argue we need to look at the promises to Abraham in Genesis, which moves us to the issue of "literal" interpretation.
As I mentioned, in a strictly literal sense, the promise to the boy was not fulfilled, but there is a far bigger story that helps us to understand why the Model T not only fulfilled the promise but also exceeded it. There was no such thing as a Model T when the father made the promise to the boy, the invention of the Model T has changed and expanded the options for fulfilling the promise. This, I will argue, is also how the Bible approaches the promises to Abraham.
To understand this we need to zoom way out and get an idea of the bigger picture that the Bible is unpacking for us. As the saying goes, "the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed" so we need to go to the New Testament to see how these promises were understood. I don't have time to do an in-depth study of how the NT speaks to the three key promises that were made to Abraham, but I will briefly speak to each one.
Most would agree that interpreting these promises "literally" is the best method, but we also need to recognize (as with the story of the boy) what other developments might cause us to expect the fulfillment to be more than what was initially expected. Here is how the New Testament authors speak about the seed, the land, and the blessing promises:
Galatians 3:16 says, "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ." Notice that the apostle Paul says of all the promises made to Abraham that they were to Abraham and to his 'offspring' and then he interprets that for us to be Christ. In other words, the Apostle Paul writing while inspired by the Holy Spirit tells us that the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled IN CHRIST! Christ is the true Offspring (seed or descendant depending on your translation) to whom the promises were made and in whom the promises would be fulfilled. Again, much more should be said, but I must press on.
In Gal 4:21-31 Paul uses an allegory to argue that Hagar (the mother of Ishmael, the son of the flesh) is associated with the present earthly Jerusalem, and that Sarah (the mother if Isaac, the son of promise) is associated with the heavenly Jerusalem. This would have infuriated Jews of his day because their whole claim was that they were Abraham's children through Isaac, which is why they had a claim to the land. But Paul spins the illustration on its head to prove his point: there is a far better "Jerusalem" to come, a heavenly Jerusalem.
Later John would write in Revelation 21:1-8 about the New Heaven and the New Earth saying, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (emphasis added) Here again we see that the old earth and old Jerusalem have passed away, and a New Earth and New Jerusalem come down from heaven. So, just as Paul had said that the true "children of Abraham" are to be associated with the heavenly Jerusalem, John sees the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, and it is the dwelling place of God with men.
So I ask, "If God has chosen to make the New Heavenly Jerusalem (the only truly eternal city because the old Jerusalem will pass away and hence cannot fulfill the eternal promises made to Abraham!) be the inheritance rather than the temporal and earthly Jerusalem, is He failing to fulfill His promise?" To quote Paul, "MAY IT NEVER BE!" God will fulfill the land promise in ways that were impossible for Abraham and his descendants to fully understand. However, Abraham did have some understanding that the land promise was for more than just the earthly city because Hebrews 11:10 says, "For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." Though Abraham certainly did not fully comprehend the glory that was to be revealed, even he understood that the promise was for an eternal city, and he looked forward to the true fulfillment.
The promise of being a blessing to all nations is spoken of in Acts 3:25-26 when Peter preaches after the lame beggar is healed saying, "You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” (emphasis added) You see, Peter claimed that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of blessing. Jesus was born a Jew of the tribe of Judah, so the Jews were a blessing to all nations BECAUSE Jesus was born a Jew and He is the true blessing to the nations of the earth.
When we zoom out and begin to see the larger story surrounding the promises to Abraham, it helps us to understand what God was doing. Has God failed to fulfill His promises to Abraham and the Jews by showing us in the New Testament that Jesus is the true blessing to all nations, and that Jesus is the true Offspring that came from Abraham's offspring? No, God is ALWAYS faithful to His promises, but He promised and delivered far, far more than was originally anticipated.
I am sure that not everyone will be persuaded by the arguments that I have laid out in this post, and that is totally fine. Again, this is a non-essential issue. (For more information on essential vs non-essential doctrines I'll refer you to this post: http://trevorbinkley.blogspot.com/2013/01/majoring-in-minors.html) As long as we are in agreement on the essentials and the unchangeable gospel, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And that means that we need to act like it. Sadly, far too many have used this issue to attack fellow believers by making comments like, "Those that hold to "Replacement" theology have left the faith." Frankly the people who say such things are in sin and they need to repent for causing division in the body of Christ.
Finally, I want to answer the question that the title of this post asks, "Has 'Replacement' theology replaced the gospel?" It grieves me to answer this question with a resounding, "Yes." In many churches today there is far more talking about the Jews being back in the land, and there is far more attention paid to the latest Middle East controversies than there is to weekly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Please, brothers and sisters, do not allow ANYTHING to take the place that the gospel should hold. The Bible is about the Jesus, the Son of God, so let's keep the focus on the truly main thing.
I welcome any questions or concerns regarding this post. Please feel free to email me at trevorjbinkley@gmail.com
Good word, Travis! Sorry I rushed to misunderstand you earlier on Facebook. Now that I have seen your picture and background on FB I recognize you; we attended Calvary Chapel Southeast for a bit, and you were there at that time.
ReplyDeleteI also know who the booming voiced teacher is that you are referring to; the same guy I referred to in my article that I linked in my comment on FB ;-). Here is something I wrote years ago that was picked up by mongerism.com as the header for their amil category:
**The Amillennialist affirms that the people of Israel have not been cast off or replaced, but rather, that the Gentiles have now been included among the Jews in God's Covenantal promises. In other words, not replacement but expansion. God's redemptive plan, as first promised to Abraham, was that "all nations" would be blessed through him. Israel is, and always has been, saved the same as any other nation: by the promises to the seed, Christ. Amillennialists, do not believe in a literal 1000 year reign of Christ on earth after His second coming. Rather, they affirm that when Christ returns, the resurrection of both the righteous and wicked will take place simultaneously (see John 5), followed by judgment and and the eternal state where heaven and earth merge and Christ reigns forever.
Strong points of Amillennialism
* It is highly Christocentric: it makes Christ the center of all the biblical covenants (even the “Land” covenant or Siniatic)
* It notes the universal scope of the Abrahamic Covenant (as key) to interpreting the rest of the biblical covenants * It sees salvation history oriented to a person (Christ), instead of a people (the nation of Israel)
* It emphasizes continuity between the “people of God” (Israel and the Church are one in Christ Eph. 2:11ff)
* It provides an ethic that is rooted in creation, and “re-creation” (continuity between God’s redemptive work now, carried over into the eternal state then)
* It emphasizes a trinitarian view of God as it elevates the “person”, Christ Jesus, the second person of the trinity as the point and mediator of all history
* It flows from a hermeneutic that takes seriously the literary character of the Scriptures (esp. the book of Revelation)** at this link: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Eschatology/Millennial-Views/Amillennialism/
I actually wrote this years before I became an amillennialist.
Anyway, good words in your post, and sorry for jumping to conclusions. So I assume you are no longer associated with Calvary Chapels; or are you?
Bobby Grow
Hi Bobby,
ReplyDeleteNo worries at all. When I read your post I laughed at our similar reference. :)
No we are not attending CCSE, after four and a half years on staff there we spent a year in NY serving as a worship pastor for another Calvary. Then this past Oct we moved back to Portland to prepare to plant a church and now we are plugged in at The Gathering and are blessed to be there.
Great to officially meet you in cyberspace.
Trevor