A review of The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe. Audiobook read by Robert Petkoff, 2016. This little book by the novelist and contemporary commentator on modern culture Tom Wolfe is worth the attention of anyone interested in the enigma of language. An enigma it is, more especially if one does not understand language as God ordained. Wolfe would appear to be an example of this point of view. So if Wolfe does not connect language to the Creator, but …
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Part Five I finished the last installment by stating that in viewing the Bible from a certain redemptive-historical perspective (a common one I might add), the only conclusion that one can come to is that the church has always existed, and that therefore elect Israel in the OT was the church of the OT to which now the Gentiles have been added in the NT era. Remember these words from Sam Storms: [Paul] clearly states that there is but one …
Part Four Incipient Supercessionsm So far I have tried to show that replacement theology exists and that it is a coinage of at least some covenant theologians, and also that it can take the shape either of direct replacementism (i.e. the church replaces Israel), or else conceptual replacementism (aspects of Israel’s promises are superseded by antitypes in the church). However, there is no shortage of men who vehemently deny that their theology is replacement theology. Sam Storms has stated, Replacement …
Part Three A Little More on the Reality of ‘Replacementism’ Theologian R. Kendall Soulen opens his book about supercessionism in church history with an explanation of what supercessionism is: According to this teaching, God chose the Jewish people after the fall of Adam in order to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Savior. After Christ came, however, the special role of the Jewish people came to an end and its place was taken by the church, …
Part Two Replacement of Concepts? In the book The Meaning of the Millennium (ed. Robert G. Clouse), the well known postmillennial scholar Loraine Boettner said, The land of Palestine…was given to Abraham and his seed “for an everlasting possession” (Gen. 17:8). But the same thing is said of the perpetual duration of the priesthood of Aaron (Ex. 40:15), the Passover (Ex. 12:14), the Sabbath (Ex. 31:17) and David’s throne (2 Sam. 7:13, 16, 24). But in the light of the …
Part One It’s a Real Thing That replacement theology actually exists should be beyond dispute. In a well known admission, the esteemed NT scholar C.E.B. Cranfield wrote, the assumption that the Church has simply replaced Israel as the people of God is extremely common. . . . And I confess with shame to having also myself used in print on more than one occasion this language of the replacement of Israel by the Church. – C. E. B. Cranfield, A …
Recently I have been reminded of the Reformed CT community’s aversion to the label of supercessionism, or worse, replacement theology. In the last decade or so particularly I have read repeated disavowals of this term from covenant theologians. Not wanting to misrepresent or smear brethren with whom I disagree, I have to say that I struggle a bit with these protests. “We are not replacement theologians” we are told, “but rather we believe in transformation or expansion.” By some of …
I want to turn quickly to consider the picture of the Messiah in the story as we have it in the first five Books of Moses. If one hesitates to bring to the Pentateuch what one already knows from the rest of Scripture, the picture of the Promised One is diminished but still of real interest.[1] The main passages are in Genesis 3:15; 22:18; 49:8-10; Numbers 24:8-9, 17-19, and Deuteronomy 18:15-19. These are the clearest scriptures. Other passages, such as …
Bridging the portentous chapter 28 and the hopeful chapter 30, Deuteronomy 29 contains what is often referred to, especially in Dispensational literature, as ‘the Palestinian covenant.’[1] Clearly the way the chapter begins must be taken seriously: These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb. – Deuteronomy 29:1 This “other” covenant is explicitly said to be “besides” …
The Mosaic Covenant as a Historical Placeholder for Other Covenants If the commandments in the ‘Ten Words’ on Sinai (Exod. 20) and all those that followed in their train were too stringent for a fallen people to keep, at least the covenant God made with Israel, and which they voluntarily entered into (in Exod. 24), distinguished them among the other nations of the world. It did this to the extent that they were preserved as a distinct people in continuity …
