The Power of the Prophetic Blessing: An Astonishing Revelation For a New Generation by John Hagee

I received a free review copy of The Power of the Prophetic Blessing by John Hagee. I had heard of this author and watched him briefly on television but never read anything by him. The book is based on the idea that if you are a spiritual authority of some kind you can pronounce blessings upon people and God will make those blessings come to pass as long as you follow all the proper protocol.

Hagee goes down a number of rabbit trails throughout the book. In one case he talks about how blessing was done by the laying on of hands and uses this as springboard to talk about how important it is to hug people. He seems to have trouble staying focused or creating an intelligible argument for what he's trying to prove. It's not until chapter 10 that he really lays out six steps that are required to unleash the prophetic blessing. It would have made more sense to turn each of these six steps into a chapter and eliminate the rest of the book.

The book makes a number of rather silly errors. There are some formatting problems and on page 9 Hagee confuses the Mount of Transfiguration with the Mount of Ascension. There is a formatting error on pages 226-227. The text should be offset in some way to show that Hagee is telling someone else's story and not talking his husband. On page 248, Hagee makes it sound as if the Greek New Testament is a translation from the King James Version of the Bible and then confuses Thayer's lexicon with the KJV.

Throughout the book Hagee takes passages that are addressing particular individuals in Scripture and then speaks as if they apply to everyone. On page 37 Hagee takes something that God said specifically to Jeremiah and tries to apply to everyone.

On pages 52-53 Hagee speaks of the promise God gave to Abraham and tries to prove that this blessing is tied to Abraham's obedience and so if you obey God He will bless you too. But the text doesn't say anything like that. Abraham was basically a pagan and God told him that He would bless him before he did anything. God then tells him to go but the text doesn't say that God blessed Abraham because he went. Throughout the book, Hagee tries to argue that God's blessings are always dependent upon our obedience. As I was reading I started to wonder what Hagee would do with the passage in Genesis 12 where Abraham told his wife to lie and yet was still delivered. I (and I think most commentators) would understand this to be example of God's faithfulness despite our unfaithfulness. I expected Hagee to simply ignore this passage since it doesn't seem to fit his formula. But instead Hagee brings the passage up (p. 56) as an example of Abraham trusting in God. But if Abraham trusted God, wouldn't he tell his wife to tell the full truth?

Hagee spends a large portion of the book talking about how we must support the nation of Israel to receive God's blessing. He completely misses the point that the New Testament portrays Jesus as the New Israel and that through union with Christ we become heirs of the promises given to Abraham. Israel plays a much bigger role in this book than Jesus does. You even get the sense that Hagee believes that Jews are saved apart from Christ. Hagee takes Romans 15:27 (p. 83) and tries to use it as proof text for supporting the Jewish people. But Paul was not taking a collection for the Jewish people in general but for Jews who had become Christians and were living in Jerusalem. Paul is not taking a collection for Jews who deny Christ. Hagee spends a large portion of the book trying to prove that any nation that does not support Israel will be cursed and any nation that does will be blessed. He very selectively quotes from various news sources. Hagee claims (pp. 86-88) Hugo Chavez got cancer because he made a speech in which he claimed that Israel had killed a group of humanitarians that were bringing aid to the Palestinians. In many cases Hagee's book is self-refuting if you're paying attention. He claims that those who support national Israel will receive material blessings and make lots of friends and then (pp. 93-95) Hagee talks about people who were killed for protecting the Jews. When Hagee speaks of the crucifixion of Jesus (p. 158) he makes it sound like it was just the Roman government that put Jesus to death.

The book is not based upon any real command in the Scriptures but rather upon narrative examples. This guy made "prophetic blessings" and therefore you should too. Hagee uses Habakkuk 2:2-3 (pp. 216-217) where God tells Habakkuk to write down the vision God gives him to try to teach that we should write down all the things we would like to accomplish. But Habakkuk wasn't writing a wish list of things he would like to accomplish, he wrote what God very clearly instructed him to write. It wasn't just some feeling that Habakkuk had. Ezekiel ate dung, does that mean that we should eat dung? There's also a number of "prophetic blessings" in Scripture that are very negative and in some cases more of a curse than a blessing. I thought that Hagee might just ignore these. He does mention them. In some cases he tries to make them sound positive and in others he just states the negative results. But if we are to bless our children in this very same way are we also supposed to curse them? Hagee never addresses the issue.

Hagee's depiction of God is very weak and limited. On page 214 he says:

God can only get involved in your life and in your dreams for the future when you call out to Him in prayer. The initiative rests with you.

Basically, God is weak and can't do anything according to Hagee unless we initiate it. If Hagee were right then we would be the real gods and God would just be some sort of power source that we tap into. On page 259, Hagee says that because God calls the things that are not as though they were we should too. Hagee says that according to Romans 4 Abraham became the father of Isaac because he believed God's promise. But that's not what the text says at all. It says Abraham was declared righteous by God because He trusted God's promise and the promise was not ultimately just to give him a son or piece of land but to give him Jesus.

Starting on page 266, Hagee begins to lay out the Scriptural requirements for releasing the prophetic blessing. Earlier in the book he does say that you have to believe that Jesus died for you but this doesn't make it on the list. Jesus seems like little more than a tool to use to unleash your power in the book. Earlier in the book he also says you have to do nice things for national Israel but that isn't mentioned in the list either. The first requirement is that the person who gives the blessing must have spiritual authority. They should be a parent or pastor according to Hagee. However, elsewhere in the book, Hagee says that if you don't have a pastor or parent who is willing to do this for you, you can pray a rather strange prayer over yourself.

The second requirement is that you stand while giving the blessing. Strangely, none of the Scriptural passages that Hagee gives involve people standing to give a blessing. 2 Chronicles 6:3 says that the people were standing but doesn't say that the person giving the blessing was standing. He quotes some of the strangest passages to try to prove his point. He even quotes Acts 7:33 where God tells Moses to take off his sandals because he is standing on holy ground. Not only is there a lack of any command in the Scriptures he provides but there is also just a lack of any example of what he's talking about. Maybe since the bush was on fire we should light ourselves on fire when we bless someone.

The third requirement is that the person blessing should do so with uplifted hands. Hagee does provide some examples but the Scriptures also speak of people blessing by placing their hand on someone. Especially when blessing individuals the practice seems to be to place the hand upon the person and strangely enough elsewhere in the book Hagee does talk about people blessing by placing the hand on the head.

The fourth requirement is that it be done in the name of the Lord. For some reason Hagee decides to apply 2 Chronicles 7:14 to America in this section. You would think that if he were going to insist on reading the Jews into all kinds of strange places in the New Testament he wouldn't be trying to read America in the Old Testament. Then he makes a claim that aerial photographs have captured the name of God chiseled on the mountains of Jerusalem. I don't know what this has to do with this requirement and I haven't been able to substantiate this claim. I would expect a footnote pointing to some evidence but there is none.

The fifth requirement is that the blessing be bestowed face to face. Once again, the Scriptural passage he cites don't say anything about blessing someone face to face. One speaks of the LORD speaking to Moses face to face and another speaks of Jacob seeing God face to face.

The sixth requirement is that the prophetic blessing be given with a voice of authority that all can here. I'm not sure who the "all" are. The passage he references is Deuteronomy 27:14 where God says that the Levites are to speak with a loud voice to all the men of Israel. So I guess all the men in Israel must be able to hear you when you bless someone.

The Bible is not a book about how to release prophetic blessings. According to Jesus, the Bible is all about Jesus. According to Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to testify of Jesus. Paul said that he preached nothing but Christ-crucified.

A Guide To Interpreting the Book of Revelation

My BA is in Greek and the last Greek class I took was a self-designed course in which I translated the Book of Revelation from the Robinson/Pierpont text. I ended up editing and self-publishing my translation but it could use some revision. I worked my way through Beale's commentary on the Greek text of Revelation as well as a number of other commentaries and articles in theological/Biblical studies journals. The guidelines I'm going to suggest did not come from inside of my own head but rather a synthesis of what I consider the best advice that I've found in various books and articles. But I don't know of any books or articles that bring these all together.


1. Revelation begins with "The Revelation of Jesus Christ." It's not the revelation of the Antichrist or the revelation of the United Nations or the revelation of the nation state of Israel. This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. If you're reading commentary on the book of Revelation and the author manages to go for quite some time without talking about Jesus there is something completely wrong with his approach. This is "The Revelation of Jesus Christ."

2. Revelation signifies things. In verse 1, in addition to telling us that this is a revelation of Jesus Christ, we are told that the angel that Revelation was "signified" (KJV) by the angel to John. The book begins by telling us that it's going to contain a bunch of signs and symbols. We would be denying what the book says about itself if we were to demand an absolute literalistic interpretation and nobody interprets the entire book literally. If you read the dispensationalists, they pick out certain things to take literally but they don't take the whole thing literally. They think the locusts are helicopters and so forth.

3. Revelation is written in a liturgical format. In 1:3 the book pronounces a blessing upon the reader and the hearers. Throughout the book The book assumes that it is being read within the context of a liturgical worship service where people are gathered to receive Christ's body and blood. The Lamb on the Altar is central to the book. The book itself is arranged in a liturgical format that follows the historic liturgy.

4. Revelation is very sacramental. Revelation 3:20 is a common verse quoted in evangelism but despite what the evangelists say there isn't anything about Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. Jesus is knocking on the door of the church and promises the church that if they open the door He will eat with them in the Lord's Supper. Revelation also contains lots of baptismal language where people are said to wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

5. Revelation is purposefully ambiguous. It is not intended to only be relevant to a single group of people at a single point in time. When David penned Psalm 51 he had his sin with Bathsheba in mind but wrote it in such a way that every Christian could take it upon his lips. 666 has something to do with Nero but 666 is not limited to Nero. The message of Revelation is that the Lamb is conquering through the blood of the martyrs even though from all earthly appearances Christ is absent and the church is being defeated. This message has relevance to the church in every age and especially the persecuted church in every age. The imagery associated with the persecutors applies to the persecutors of every age. The point is not to try to find a one to one correspondence between a single image and a single persecutor or to try to predict when a specific persecutor will come. The point is to provide comfort to the persecuted because the Lamb wins.

6. Revelation is classified among what Eusebius referred to as the disputed books of the New Testament (along with Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2&3 John). It did not receive the immediate widespread acceptance that the Gospels or the letters of Paul did. Revelation and these other disputed books are listed as part of the New Testament Apocrypha by Martin Chemnitz. The term "Apocrypha" shouldn't scare us. Up until the late 1800's English Protestant Bibles contained the Old Testament Apocrypha. The KJV and Luther's Bible both contained the Apocrypha. However, the disputed books are not as clear in what they teach as the undisputed books. The canonical order provides a helpful guide. If you start with Matthew and use Matthew as the lens through which to read Mark and then use Matthew and Mark as the lens through which to read Luke and so on down the line you're far less likely to fall into error. Revelation alludes to a number of other books and assumes you are already familiar with them, the other books do not assume that you have read Revelation. So it doesn't make sense to read Revelation and then try to read Revelation into all other books of the Bible.

7. Because of this, Revelation should not be used as your first stop in determining the correct eschatological position. You should look to the Gospels first and work your way out to Revelation and never base a doctrine completely on some line from Revelation and/or some disputed dating of Revelation. Christ has called us to trust and believe what He says, not speculations. We can learn a lot about Jesus in the Book of Revelation (it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, remember?), but it's not some kind of handbook on eschatology. The purpose is to comfort the persecuted, not to provide secret codes.

David Barton: When Jesus is Lord Means Caesar is Lord

Secularists tend to understand the separation of church and state in such a way that religious beliefs should have no bearing on politics. The reaction of many evangelicals has been to argue that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the separation was only intended to keep the state from messing with the church but that the church can mess with the state as much as it wants. Neither position really takes original intent seriously, both are engaging in revisionist history, and although the second position is more likely to be more popular with Christians it is far more dangerous to real Christianity.

David Barton is one of the more popular defenders of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. Barton has no formal credentials in law or history but is presented to us as an expert in historical and constitutional issues. When confronted with the fact that no reputable historians agree with him, Barton refuses to engage in debate and says that they disagree because they're either all liberals or jealous of him. Many of Barton's quotes of the founding fathers have been shown to be fraudulent.

Huckabee, Gingrich, and Glenn Beck have all sung the praises of Barton. But he has also run into some trouble with some evangelicals recently because of his statements that Glenn Beck (who is a Mormon) is a Christian. I would argue that Barton is just being consistent. Barton regards Beck as being a Christian for the same reason that he regards the founding fathers as all being Christians and for the same reason he regards the Constitution as being Christian. For Barton, a Christian is not someone who believes in the Christ of Scripture. For Barton, a Christian is someone who holds to a Judeo-Christian morality, believes in limited government, and is a Zionist. Barton dismisses the statements Jefferson made against Christianity. Jefferson even issued his own version of the Bible with all the miracles removed but Barton even tries to explain this away and even says that there is no DNA evidence to prove that Jefferson fathered any children outside of his marriage. In the mind of Barton, what makes a person a Christian seems to be that they support the Republican party platform and say nice things about Jesus. Doctrines like the Trinity or who Jesus was are really not important to Barton.

In the early church, Christians were put to death for refusing to say "Caesar is Lord." It wasn't really believed that Caesar was an actual god as much as it was acknowledging allegiance to a particular culture and worldview. Many Roman intellectuals did not regard the stories about the gods as true but they formed part of a cultural heritage. The Christian worldview was understood to be a threat to that unity and heritage. Christians didn't party with the Romans and placed greater value on those who were looked down on in Roman society. Christians did not try to convince the Romans that the Rome was a Christian nation and did not try to legislate Christianity.

When Barton engages in revisionist history he doesn't help the Christian cause at all. Instead he makes Christians look like idiots. But worse than that, he turns Caesar into Jesus. If Romney, Jefferson, and Deist founding fathers are true Christians, then what is a Christian? It can't have anything to do with the Biblical Jesus who is true God and true man and died for our sins, since these people that Barton claims are Christians deny some or all of these teachings. I'm sure that people who affirm the orthodox teachings regarding Christ would be regarded as Christians by Barton as well but it's not necessary. If the early Christians were concerned for the "Christianity" that Barton endorses they would never have bothered to write the Nicene Creed. They would have issued political and moral statements but not doctrinal statements. Jesus. As it stands, Barton's "Jesus" has very little to do with the Jesus of orthodox Christianity. Barton's "Jesus" is the embodiment of Judeo-Christian values enshrined in the Constitution as interpreted by the neo-conservatives. Barton's Jesus is really Caesar. Barton's is not the Caesar of Biblical times but he is still a Caesar.

When Caesar kills Christians it's very clear who Caesar is and what a Christian is and who Jesus is. But when Jesus becomes reinterpreted to fit the mold of the American Caesar, the true Jesus gets lost and there is no salvation because there is nothing we really need saving from unless of course you aren't American and/or don't subscribe to American ideals.

The Art of Faith: A Guide to Understanding Christian Art and Architecture by Judith Couchman

Paraclete Press sent me a review copy of The Art of Faith: A Guide to Christian Art and Architecture by Judith Couchman. The book is arranged topically. Within those divisions there are various entries that explain the symbolism found in Christian artwork. An index is provided so that you can quickly look up an entry such as "almond." Each entry contains a brief explanation and examples of painting where this symbol can be found. I am not aware of any book quite like this and it should be helpful for anyone who has an interest in Christian art. Symbols typically are there for a reason and not merely decorative. Like other books from Paraclete Press, the book attempts to be ecumenical in order to be useful to a wide variety of Christians but at times I thought this was take too far. For instance, the majority (if not all) of the artistic works mentioned that depict baptism were done by people who held to baptismal regeneration but the author of the book says that baptism is a symbol of salvation. So we end up with a painting that contains symbols of symbols. When it came to the Lord's Supper, the author spent a brief time explaining the different views that Christians have of the Lord's Supper but I don't think all these various views existed among the artists. The book is not tiny but I would have liked to see entries that were a bit longer in some cases. When we get to the baptism of Jesus all we really learn is that the Holy Spirit is depicted as a dove in Christian art. But the book is certainly still useful, especially when dealing with some of the less obvious symbolism in Christian art.

Textual Criticism, Falsifiability, and the Gospel of Q

In order for a claim to be convincing it has to be falsifiable. This sounds contradictory until you think about it a bit. The statement, "It will rain tomorrow" is falsifiable because you can observe whether or not it rains tomorrow. If someone says that a silent, invisible dragon that takes up no space lives in his garage, it is not falsifiable because there is no way of observing the dragon. The claims of most non-Christian religions are not falsifiable. There is no way of proving that Mohammed or Joseph Smith did not receive revelation from God and so there is also no way of proving that they did.

Christianity is unique as a religion in that it is falsifiable. If it could be proven that someone had Jesus's bones, it would be proven that Christianity is false. The historical evidence that a resurrection did take place is strong enough that there are people who believe that Jesus had some type of resurrection without buying into all that He taught. As Christians we believe what Jesus taught because He died and rose again.

Unfortunately much of current textual criticism operates under a number of assumptions that are not falsifiable and which the actual evidence tends to contradict. Even though the manuscripts that we have tend to support the idea that except in a few localized instances scribes tended to simply copy what was in front of them, textual criticism tends to assume that those who copied texts were making insertions and expanding the text all over the place and that these changes became the dominant text. This is true even among those who hold to a rather high view of Scripture. At the very least, they tend to accept the textual work done by those who assume that the church has been in the business of corrupting the text rather than preserving the text and that the reading that the church rejected should be preferred to the one it accepted.

The idea that the church expanded the text has also caused a shift from the historic view that Matthew was the first Gospel written to the idea that Mark must have been the first Gospel written. Mark seems to assume that the reader is already familiar with Matthew but the "shorter is original" argument tends to win out over the idea that Mark was writing for a specific purpose. When it is widely accepted that the church began to corrupt the text at a very early date, it's no surprise that people start to question the integrity of the Gospels themselves and start looking elsewhere for another source. So the "Q Source Hypothesis" developed.

The idea is that Matthew and Luke were dependent upon both Mark and "Q." The problem is that there is no evidence that there is such a thing as "Q." There is not a single manuscript and there is not a single reference to "Q" in the church fathers. It only exists in the imagination of textual critics. Since it only exists in the imagination of textual critics it is not falifiable. You can't prove that "Q" doesn't exist for the same reasons you can't prove that Joseph Smith didn't receive magic spectacles and gold plates. You can't prove that "Q" doesn't exist for the same reason you can't prove that the Gospels were not spoken through the mouth of a dragon that resulted in unicorns pooping out manuscripts. The idea that "Q" doesn't exist is in fact falsifiable because all you would need to prove me wrong is to produce a copy of "Q." But to assert that "Q" does exist is not falsifiable because there is no real way to prove that it doesn't exist. Augsburg/Fortress actually released a The Critical Edition of Q.Scholars voted on what passages they beleived were included in this thing that has no evidence of ever having existed.

If the Q theory only held sway in the field of textual criticism things might not be so bad. But the assumption of Q has ruined a great number of commentaries on the Gospels. Some scholars spend so much time in commentaries talking about whether or not a specific passage was drawn from Q that they have little space left to comment on the Greek text that really exists that is sitting before them and little time to delve into the theology of the text. Even more liberal scholars who buy into these theories like Brevard Childs have recognized the problem and insist that eventually you have to deal with the text you have--the text which is actually used by the church--rather than only dealing with the imaginary text that nobody has.

I am thankful for the Concordia Commentary series for this reason as well as many others. I'm really looking forward to the forthcoming commentary on Mark by Dr. James Voelz. Dr. Voelz studied under C.F.D. Moule and knows the Greek as well as anyone. He puts together a pretty persuasive argument for the idea that Mark was written after Matthew and Luke.

At the end of the day, the pastor's job is to deliver Christ-crucified to people from the Scriptures as the perfect icon of Christ. The pastor's job is not to engage in speculation and doubt in order to impress people with how smart he supposedly is.

The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology by Charles Porterfield Krauth

I just recently finished reading The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology by Charles Porterfield Krauth. You can read it for free here or purchase a printed copy here. Archive.org has several copies in various digital formats that you can download for free. Unfortunately the copy I downloaded for my Kindle had lots and lots of OCR errors. But possibly one of the other copies has fewer.

C.P. Krauth played a big role in getting the Lutheran church to return to her confessions in the 19th Century and this book is a tremendous accomplishment. In many other books, the term "Conservative Reformation" has reference to Lutheran and Calvinist churches as opposed to the "Radical Reformation" which refers to the anabaptists. But Krauth understands the Calvinists to be part of the "Radical Reformation." So the book is really a defense and explanation of the historic teachings of the Lutheran churches, especially on the issue of the sacraments. Krauth defends the Lutheran position as being the historic Christian position against every objection you could possibly think of and many you never would. He responds to some of the more legitimate arguments but also takes the time to respond to some of the most ridiculous arguments against the Lutheran position. In one section Krauth goes on forever refuting some ridiculous statements by some Baptists claiming that Luther believed immersion was required for a valid baptism. But Krauth spends most of the time correcting Calvinist misrepresentations of Lutheranism and arguing against the Calvinist position. He gives such a thorough defense of the Lutheran that it's hard to see how anyone could refute what he wrote. Unfortunately the length of his work results in not many people reading it. Krauth is direct. He's not flowery in his language. He doesn't talk around issues. Krauth takes a very definite position. For an exhaustive defense of the Lutheran faith you really can't beat him but it will probably exhaust you.

He also sings the praises of Luther for some time in his book. I thought it was a little over the top but he says some things about Luther I was not aware of. So go lock yourself in the Wartburg Castle for a few months and read some Krauth.

Dispensationalism, Calvinism, and Progressive Revelation

Issues Etc. recently had a very interesting interview with Dr. Thomas Ice. I appreciate the fact that Issues Etc. often has guests that disagree with the theological position of the program so that we are able to hear a representative from that theological position explain why they believe what they believe. Dr. Thomas Ice is a very intelligent man and able to defend Dispensationalism as well as anyone I've heard. There are some huge problems with his position but I thought he had some very interesting things to say.

Dr. Ice is an honest enough scholar to admit that Dispensationalism is a relatively new system of belief. Dr. Ice does not believe this is problematic because according to him doctrine is in continual development. He listed the substitutionary atonement, justification by faith alone, and covenant theology as all things that took time to develop in the church. Dr. Ice says that the early Dispensationalists were Calvinists and very concerned about the glory of God.

This interview with Dr. Ice made me realize something I had not noticed before. Even though most current Dispensationalists are not Calvinists and most current Calvinists are not Dispensationalists, Dispensationalism could not have developed without Calvinism.

Both the Lutherans and the early church fathers believed that the Scriptures were all about Jesus. The early church fathers found Jesus in some of the most unlikely places in the Old Testament. By doing this, they were following the Apostolic tradition. Many examples could be pointed to in the New Testament but I'll just use one as an example that I believe also demonstrates the problem with Dispensationalism. Hosea 11:1 says:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (Hosea 11:1 ESV)

If all we had was Hosea 11:1, how should it be interpreted? It would seem that according the historical-grammatical method used by most Protestants "Israel" would be understood as national Israel and God is speaking of a past even when He delivered Israel out of the land of Egypt. But how does Matthew interpret Hosea 11:1?

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:13-15 ESV)

Matthew takes a statement that appears to be just a statement about a past even that happened to Israel and interprets it as a prophecy about Jesus. The Dispensationalist will tell us that Matthew was inspired by the Holy Spirit and free to give entirely new meanings to Old Testament texts. The Calvinist will generally accept Matthew 2:15 as giving us the authoritative interpretation of Hosea 11:1 but is uncomfortable with interpreting Old Testament texts that are not explicitly referenced in the New Testament in the same way. The Lutherans and the Early Church Fathers understood the Apostles to be providing us with examples of how we should read the Old Testament.

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27 ESV)

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, (John 5:39 ESV)

Lutherans understand the above passages to teach that all of the Scriptures are all about Jesus. Calvinists and Dispensationalists tend to take them to mean that the Old Testament contains prophecies about Jesus but that the Old Testament is not all about Jesus. The church fathers taught that the Psalms were all about Jesus, but Calvin only believed some of them were and thought that the interpretations given by the church fathers that found Jesus everywhere were ridiculous just as the Dispensationalist finds them ridiculous.

Lutherans confess with the Apostle Paul that the central message of all preaching should be Christ-crucified because ultimately the Scriptures are all about Christ-crucified for the justification of sinners. But Calvinism and Dispensationalism see God's glory as the central teaching of all of Scripture. For Calvinism and Dispensationalism, the crucifixion of Christ is part of the larger story about God's glory.

I appreciate the work done by Kim Riddlebarger and other Calvinist theologians on eschatology. Lutherans have been a little lazy. But Calvinist theologians tend to make the leap immediately to showing how the church is the fulfillment of Israel. This is partially due to the prominent place that Covenant Theology has in Calvinism. When Calvinists argue for infant baptism they tend to do so on the covenantal grounds first defended by Zwingli rather than use the historic arguments about infants being part of the nations and needing to have their sins washed away. But rather than jump immediately from Israel to the church, I think it's important to see as Matthew does that Jesus is Israel reduced to one. Jesus is the New Israel. Jesus does everything Israel failed to do. Through our union with Jesus as the church we receive the blessings promised to Israel. This keeps everything centered upon Christ rather than on a transition from Israel to the church.

I think this could be helpful from an apologetics perspective as well. Often, Dispensationalists are reacting against covenant theology which they understand to be replacement theology that replaces Israel with the church. But the Scriptures are not centered upon Israel or the church, they are centered upon Christ. What is said about both God and Israel in the Old Testament is usually metaphorically true of each of them but becomes literally true in Christ. Psalm 22 applied in some metaphorical way to both David and Israel but is literally true of Christ. When Job says that God walks on the waters, Jesus literally does that. People have managed to use Old Testament prophecy in very wrong ways to justify the taking of another person's land or slavery or something like that. But the possibility of abuses get taken off the table if you take it as all being about Jesus and it's hard to argue that the Devil is deceiving people into thinking that the Bible is all about Jesus.

Todd Wilken rightly pointed out how mainline liberals have used the idea of the continual development of doctrine to justify some pretty outrageous things. But so has Rome. And I think people would be surprised to find out that even in confessionally Calvinist circles, the idea of the continual development of doctrine is promoted. I was at a lecture done by Herman Hanko where he said that if  a church does not continue to develop in its doctrines it will die off. That's at least part of the reason why there are so many different Calvinist denominations. They have all developed in different directions.

Calvinism has to accept the idea that doctrine isn't just something to be handed down but must be continually developed. Otherwise there would be no way to justify the doctrine of the limited atonement or the idea that once someone has real faith they will never fall away from the faith. Michael Horton has tried to find these teachings in the church fathers but as I've shown in a previous blog post the scholarship is really, really bad. You can't find TULIP in the church fathers. Contrary to Dr. Ice you can find justification by faith alone and the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement does not begin with Anselm. But it's not that surprising that within the Calvinist system that believes that everyone got it wrong until they came along that Dispensationalism would develop and regard themselves as building upon and further developing what Calvinism started. If everyone got the atonement wrong for so long, how do we know that they didn't get eschatology wrong and the relationship between the church and Israel? The covenant theology taught by Calvinism is a relatively new doctrine in the Christian church, only a little bit older than Dispensationalism.

You can have your covenant theology or your Dispensationalism. I'll take Christ-crucified in my ear and in my mouth for the forgiveness of my sins.