In a previous article (Joel Richardson Issues Challenge to Hank Hanegraaff Over “Replacement Theology”) I dealt with some of the exegetical issues related to the charge that if a Christian does not follow the end-time prophetic scenario of dispensational premillennialism and some of its sister views, then that person is labeled a “supercessionist” who believes that the Church replaces Israel in God’s redemptive plan.
Those who push the “Replacement Theology” narrative claim that there is an Israel-Church distinction which postpones God’s prophetic timetable. According to this view, we are presently living in a parenthesis of nearly 2000 years where God is now dealing with a new entity called the Church. The prophetic clock won’t start ticking again for Israel, so the theory goes, until the so-called “rapture” of the Church takes place and God once again deals with national blood-line Israel.
The latest person to advocate for a version of this view is Joel Richardson. You can read about the controversy in the article “Answer this, ‘Bible Answer Man,’” a direct attack on Hank Hanegraaff who hosts “The Bible Answer Man” radio show. As I pointed out in my previous article, those who accuse fellow Christians of holding to Replacement Theology are issuing a not so veiled accusation of anti-Semitism or, more actually, anti-Judaism. In reality, it’s Richardson’s end-time view that predicts an inevitable future holocaust for Israel in the name of Bible prophecy.
He’s not the only person to hold this view. It’s part of the end-time system known as premillennialism. The WND article includes the following, most probably missed by most readers who are not familiar with the prophetic views of dispensationalism and those who hold to a majority of its tenets:
“‘The promises that God made to Abraham have been fulfilled,’ believes Hanegraaff. And for that reason, he finds it ‘ironic’ [that] those who condemn ‘replacement theology’ are themselves ‘herding Jews into the Holy Land, firmly believing that these Jews will soon be slaughtered in a bloodbath that exceeds that of Hitler’s Holocaust.’"
Following this statement by Hanegraaff, “Richardson says he is disappointed in Hanegraaff’s rhetoric and strongly disagrees with his interpretation of Scripture and how he characterized Richardson’s own views.” So what is Richardson’s own view on the above charge made by Hanegraaff “that these Jews will soon be slaughtered in a bloodbath that exceeds that of Hitler’s Holocaust”?
According to Richardson in his book When a Jew Rules the World: What the Bible Really says About Israel in the Plan of God, Jesus Himself “spoke of a time of unparalleled tribulation just before the return of Jesus” ((The prophecy Richardson is referring to is the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. The Olivet Discourse is a prophecy of what was to happen to the nation of Israel in the lead up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in AD 70.
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The Destruction of Jerusalem (1849), lithograph from a painting by David Roberts[/caption]
Unlike today’s prophecy writers who apply this passage to another future Jewish tribulation, there was a 40-year warning. Jesus gave that first-century generation a list of signs to look for so they could avoid the destruction (Matt. 24:15-20). No such warning is being given to modern-day Israel. For study of this subject see Last Days Madness and is Jesus Coming Soon?)) that “would indicate that what was to come in Israel could even be worse than the Holocaust. While this certainly seems to be the case, I would suggest that we should not try to quantify the suffering to come or calculate the lives that will be lost.”
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A comprehensive study of the Olivet Discourse and other prophetic topics.[/caption]
He describes this time to be “of such magnitude and horror” that it’s “a pit too deep and terrifying. I cannot bring myself to peer over the edge,” Richardson writes. “The point is that something terrible is coming and we need to get ready.” ((Joel Richardson, When a Jew Rules the World: What the Bible Really says About Israel in the Plan of God (Washington, DC: WND Books, 2015), 234.))
At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Mark Alan Siegel, who served as the chairman of Florida’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party, told an interviewer the following about what he thought of Christian and Jewish relationships:
“The Christians just want us to be there so we can be slaughtered and converted and bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ. The worst possible allies for the Jewish state are the fundamentalist Christians who want Jews to die and convert so they can bring on the second coming of their Lord. It is a false friendship. They are seeking their own ends and not ours. I don’t believe the fundamentalists urging a greater Israel are friends of the Jewish state.”
It wasn’t too long before the video of the interview went viral and Mr. Siegel was forced out of his position. Where did Mr. Siegel get such crazy ideas? It’s a prevalent view among dispensational prophecy writers. “[T]he period of great tribulation between the two phases of Jesus’ Second Coming is portrayed by dispensationalists as a time of horrific suffering and destruction of the Jewish people.” ((Stephen R. Haynes, Reluctant Witnesses: Jews and the Christian Imagination (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 162.))
On the September 18, 1991 edition of the “700 Club,” Sid Roth, host of “Messianic Vision,” stated that “two-thirds of the Jewish people [living in Israel] will be exterminated” during a future Great Tribulation. He bases this view on Zechariah 13:8–9. He argued that incidents of Blacks turning against Jews in New York City were a prelude to a coming great persecution.
Pat Robertson asked Roth: “You don’t foresee some kind of persecution against Jews in America, do you?” Roth responded: “Unfortunately, I believe God foresees this.” Roth believes that the end (pre-tribulational rapture) is near. Roth believes that Jews are destined to suffer based on a futurized interpretation of Zechariah 13:8–9. He claims that today’s anti-Semitism is a prelude to an inevitable future Jewish tribulation. The reality of violent acts against Jews is all part of Israel’s prophetic history based on the parenthesis view that is fundamental to dispensational premillennialism.
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A short study of the Olivet Discourse[/caption]
Hal Lindsey describes the judgment against Israel in AD 70 as a “picnic” compared to a super-holocaust that will lead to the slaughter of two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel today. ((Hal Lindsey, The Road to Holocaust (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), 220.))
Kay Arthur, another dispensational author, has stated publicly that what lies ahead for Israel will make Hitler’s Holocaust look like “a Sunday school picnic.” In her novel, Israel My Beloved, the heroine is standing before a future scene where the Valley of Jehoshaphat is littered with the dead based on her understanding of Zechariah 13:8-9 that only a third of Israel will survive “the fire just as Zechariah promised” ((Kay Arthur, Israel, My Beloved: A Novel (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1996), 433.)) during the future Great Tribulation where Israel is the target of God’s wrath:
“Auschwitz was nothing compared to this. ((Arthur, Israel, My Beloved, 431.)) . . . I’ve watched as men, women, and children writhe in agony — an agony beyond the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the pogroms. Beyond the horrors of Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz — all the death camps combined. . . . We have experienced an agony beyond any horror the human mind can envision . . . beyond even Hitler.” ((Arthur, Israel, My Beloved, 434.))
Let’s not forget Jack Van Impe’s Israel’s Final Holocaust in which he writes that when the prophecy clock starts ticking again after the “rapture,” it “will be traumatic days for Israel. Just when peace seems to have come, it will be taken from her and she will be plunged into another bloody persecution, . . . a devastating explosion of persecution and misery for Israel. . . .” ((Jack Van Impe with Roger F. Campbell, Israel’s Final Holocaust (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979), 37.))
Consider what Thomas Ice writes in his article “What do you do with a future National Israel in the Bible?” Dispensational prophecy writer Ice believes, like Richardson, “that Old Testament promises made to national Israel will literally be fulfilled in the future. This means the Bible teaches that God will return the Jews to their land before the tribulation begins (Isa. 11:11-12:6; Ezek. 20:33-44; 22:17-22; Zeph. 2:1-3). This has been accomplished and the stage is set as a result of the current existence of the modern state of Israel.” Then he goes on to write the following:
“The Bible also indicates that before Israel enters into her time of national blessing she must first pass through the fire of the tribulation (Deut. 4:30; Jer. 30:5–9; Dan. 12:1; Zeph. 1:14–18). Even though the horrors of the Holocaust under Hitler were of an unimaginable magnitude, the Bible teaches that a time of even greater trial awaits Israel during the tribulation. Anti-Semitism will reach new heights, this time global in scope, in which two-thirds of world Jewry will be killed (Zech. 13:7–9; Rev. 12). Through this time God will protect His remnant so that before His second advent “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:36).
In reality, it’s “all that’s left of Israel [that] will be saved.” So after a nearly 2000 year postponement God is going to renew His covenant with Israel but not after two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel – 4 million out of 6 million today and 11 million worldwide – are slaughtered.
In his book Blow the Trumpet in Zion, Richard Booker writes:
“What is this terrible tribulation that awaits the Jews? Moses said it would take place in the ‘latter days.’ It is the last seven years of this age just prior to the coming of Messiah Jesus to earth. The Bible says this will be a time of suffering such as the world has never known.
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“The Antichrist will march his troops into Israel and for a short period of time will occupy Jerusalem. Every nation will support his retaliation against Israel for their disturbing world peace. The Antichrist will kill two-thirds of all the Jews. This could mean that up to ten million Jews could be killed. The Antichrist will plunder the beloved city of Jerusalem, and one-half of the citizens will be forced into exile.” ((Richard Booker, Blow the Trumpet in Zion (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 1985), 112, 118.))
In a December 2, 1984 sermon, the late Jerry Falwell said the following: “Millions of Jews will be slaughtered at this time but a remnant will escape and God will supernaturally hide them for Himself for the last three and a half years of the Tribulation, some feel in the rose-red city of Petra.”
Charles Ryrie writes in his book The Best is Yet to Come that during this post-rapture period Israel will undergo “the worst bloodbath in Jewish history.” ((Charles C. Ryrie, The Best is Yet to Come (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1981), 86.)) The book’s title doesn’t seem appropriate considering that during this period of time millions of Jews will die!
John Walvoord follows a similar line of argument: “Israel is destined to have a particular time of suffering which will eclipse anything that it has known in the past. . . . [T]he people of Israel . . . are placing themselves within the vortex of this future whirlwind which will destroy the majority of those living in the land of Palestine.” ((John F. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1962), 107, 113. Emphasis added.))
Arnold Fruchtenbaum states that during the Great Tribulation “Israel will suffer tremendous persecution (Matthew 24:15–28; Revelation 12:1–17). As a result of this persecution of the Jewish people, two-thirds are going to be killed.” ((Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, “The Little Apocalypse of Zechariah,” The End Times Controversy: The Second Coming Under Attack, eds. Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2003), 262.))
Barry Horner claims that “quite a few [non-premillennialists], by their derogatory manner have inferred that they would be delighted if the Arabs would push Israel into the Mediterranean Sea, repossess Palestine, and thus vindicate their Eschatology!” ((Barry Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must be Challenged (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2007), xviii.)) He doesn’t identify these people or offer supporting documentation. I can produce the following from Dr. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a dispensational premillennialist:
“The present state of Israel is not the final form. The present state of Israel will be lost, eventually, and Israel will be run out of the land again, only to return when they accept the Messiah as Savior.” ((Stated on Dallas, Texas, radio program (KCBI) in a debate with me on May 15, 1991.))
Given Dr. Patterson’s end-time scenario, if Israel finds herself in a war with her neighbors, should Christians support Israel or take a “hands off” approach given what we supposedly know about Israel’s inevitable holocaust?
This is not a hypothetical question when we look at what happened during World War II.
Dwight Wilson, author of Armageddon Now!, describes himself as “a third-generation premillenarian who has spent his whole life in premillennialist churches, has attended a premillennialist Bible college, and has taught in such a college for fourteen years.” ((Dwight Wilson, Armageddon Now!: The Premillenarian Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), 13.)) He argues that some noted premillennialists advocated a “hands off” policy regarding Nazi persecutions of the Jews during World War II. Since, according to dispensational views regarding Bible prophecy, “the Gentile nations are permitted to afflict Israel in chastisement for her national sins,” there is little that should be done to oppose it. Wilson writes, “It is regrettable that this view allowed premillennialists to expect the phenomenon of ‘anti-Semitism’ and tolerate it matter-of-factly.” ((Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 16.))
Wilson describes “premillenarian views” opposing “anti-Semitism” in the mid-thirties and thereafter as “ambivalent.” ((Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 94.)) There was little moral outcry “among the premillenarians . . . against the persecution, since they had been expecting it.” ((Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 94.)) He continues:
“Another comment regarding the general European anti-Semitism depicted these developments as part of the on-going plan of God for the nation; they were ‘Foregleams of Israel’s Tribulation.’ Premillennialists were anticipating the Great Tribulation, ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble.’ Therefore, they predicted, ‘The next scene in Israel’s history may be summed up in three words: purification through tribulation.’ It was clear that although this purification was part of the curse, God did not intend that Christians should participate in it. Clear, also, was the implication that He did intend for the Germans to participate in it (in spite of the fact that it would bring them punishment) . . . and that any moral outcry against Germany would have been in opposition to God’s will. In such a fatalistic system, to oppose Hitler was to oppose God.” ((Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 94. Emphasis added.))
Wilson maintains that it was the view of a predicted Jewish persecution prior to the Second Coming that led to a “hands off” policy when it came to speaking out against virulent “anti-Semitism.” “For the premillenarian, the massacre of Jewry expedited his blessed hope. Certainly he did not rejoice over the Nazi holocaust, he just fatalistically observed it as a ‘sign of the times.’” ((Wilson, Armageddon Now!, 95.))
Premillennialist James M. Gray of the Moody Bible Institute believed in the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He defended Henry Ford when Ford published installments of the Protocols in his self-funded Dearborn Independent newspaper. In a 1927 editorial in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly, Gray claimed that Ford “had good grounds for publishing some of the things about the Jews. . . . Mr. Ford might have found corroborative evidence [of the Jewish conspiracy] had he looked for it.” ((Timothy P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875-1982 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Academie, 1983), 189.))
As time went on, Gray was coming under increasing pressure to repudiate the Protocols as a forgery. Not only Gray, but Moody Bible Institute Monthly was being criticized by the evangelical Hebrew Christian Alliance for not condemning the manufactured Protocols. Gray grew indignant and once again voiced his belief that the Protocols were authentic. He did this in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly. Gray, of course, pointed out that “Moody Bible Institute had always worked for the highest interests of Jews by training people to evangelize them.” ((Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, 189.))
Even so, Gray went on to assert that “Jews were at least partly to blame for their ill treatment.” He supported this contention by referring his readers to an article written by Max Reich, a faculty member at the Moody Bible Institute. Reich wrote: “Without religion, the Jew goes down and becomes worse than others, as a corruption of the best is always the worst corruption.” ((Quoted in Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, 190.))
Charges of “anti-Semitism” were not abated by Gray’s attempts at clarification. His views concerning the Jews remained. “By the beginning of 1935, Gray was fending off charges from the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune, the Bulletin of the Baltimore Branch of the American Jewish Congress, and even Time magazine that persons connected with Moody had been actively distributing the Protocols.” ((Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, 189.))
Of course, Gray was not the only dispensational premillennialist who vouched for the genuineness of the Protocols and had rather negative (anti-Semitic) things to say about the Jews. Arno C. Gaebelein, an editor of the Scofield Reference Bible, believed that the Protocols were authentic, that they accurately revealed a “Jewish conspiracy.” His Conflict of the Ages ((Arno Clemens Gaebelein, The Conflict of the Ages: The Mystery of Lawlessness: Its Origin, Historic Development and Coming Defeat (New York: Publication Office “Our Hope,” 1933).)) would be viewed today as an anti-Semitic work because it fostered the belief that communism had Jewish roots and that the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 had been masterminded by a group of well-trained Jewish agitators.
At the same time that Gaebelein was using anti-Semitic rhetoric, he had a thriving evangelistic ministry to Jews in New York City. Why the double mindedness? Dispensationalism expects both the persecution and salvation of the Jews. ((Timothy P. Weber, “A Reply to David Rausch’s ‘Fundamentalism and the Jew,’” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (March 1981), 70.)) This is why George Marsden could write that “fundamentalists between [World War I and II] could be both pro-Zionist and somewhat anti-Semitic, favoring the return of the Jews to Israel, which would lead eventually to their conversion; yet in the meantime especially distrusting apostate Jews.” ((George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism: 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 187–188, note 15.))
Hank Hanegraaff and I, along with many other prophecy writers, believe in the salvation of the Jews without them having to go through another holocaust. Playing the Replacement Theology card is away to cover up some of the bad exegetical work of many popular prophecy “experts,” especially their inevitable future Jewish holocaust problem.