Page 9 - Eschatology - Student Ebook

history). God can use you to alter the course of history (man’s vantage point), ex., William
Wilberforce in England or Thomas Macdonough in America.

5. God’s central focus in history is the nation of Israel. By God’s grace, God chose Abraham and
his seed to be the medium through which all nations of the earth would be blessed. God chose
through Israel to redeem mankind and God has made unconditional promises to this nation of
peoples that He intends to keep. God will bring about an earthly kingdom through Israel, ruling
the world from Zion. Therefore, the nation of Israel is key to understanding future Bible
prophecy.

6. There is a distinction between Israel and the Church. Some teach that while the promise of the
land will no longer be fulfilled to the nation of Israel due to their disobedience, God has replaced
the nation of Israel as His chosen people with the church of Jesus Christ, which replaced Israel as
His new chosen people. This view is called “Replacement Theology” and has become a very
prevalent view in the church today.

They believe that because the church has now replaced the nation of Israel all future promises
of God will be fulfilled to the church instead of to Israel. Therefore, the promise of the land will
be fulfilled to the church in a symbolic way rather than to Israel in a literal way. They expect the
church to someday have ultimate influence over the whole earth which will then symbolically
fulfill the specific land promise.

This idea of “Replacement Theology” began in the fourth century when certain church leaders
reacted against the continued rejection of Jesus Christ by the majority of Jewish people. The
church then concluded that God had rejected the nation of Israel permanently and had chosen
the church as its replacement.
For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church replaced the Jewish temple priesthood with the
priests in the Roman Catholic Church. They replaced Jewish circumcision with infant baptism.
This church replaced eating during the Passover celebration with their view of communion
known as Transubstantiation (in which they taught that the bread and wine literally became the
body and blood of Jesus Christ to be eaten literally).

The Premillennial view teaches there is a vital distinction between the Church and Israel. There
is a future for Israel, not only in terms of salvation for the nation, but also a distinct future
ethnically for the chosen people of God.

The other views teach that the church has “replaced” Israel, which, because of disobedience,
has forever forfeited its special position before God. Therefore, there is no future restoration for
the people of Israel as a nation and there is no Millennial Kingdom during which God’s promises
to Israel are literally fulfilled. The church today is the “new Israel” which will symbolically inherit
the blessings originally promised to Israel. The church has now superseded (called
supercessionism) the nation of Israel as the people of God.

7. An expectation of literal fulfillment of God’s Promises. The natural, literal interpretation of
the Bible has been replaced by a non-literal, spiritualized or allegorical interpretation in many
passages in order to erase the clear distinctions between the nation of Israel and the Church.

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