ความคิดเห็นที่ 49
Proposition II
All human beings, Jews and Gentiles alike, are sinners, and as such, they are under Gods judgment of death. Because Gods standard is perfect obedience and all are sinners, it is impossible for anyone to gain temporal peace or eternal life by his own efforts. Moreover, apart from Christ, there is no special divine favor upon any member of any ethnic group; nor, apart from Christ, is there any divine promise of an earthly land or a heavenly inheritance to anyone, whether Jew or Gentile. To teach or imply otherwise is nothing less than to compromise the Gospel itself.
The first two sentences would probably not cause any difficulties for dispensationalists. The only possible problem is the meaning of temporal peace. If it refers to a personal, individual sense of peace with God, then there is no problem. No one gains peace with God through self-effort. Only salvation by grace through faith in the blood atonement allows an individual to have such peace at that level.
However, the last two statements are potentially problematic for the dispensationalist. They echo the earlier discussion about paragraph three. If divine favor can be viewed as salvific favor, then dispensationalists would have no problem. All people, regardless of ethnic descent come to God through Christ, although the dispensationalist would be more prone to acknowledge different levels of understanding as time progresses throughout the various dispensations.[40] If what is meant is non-salvific favor, there is a problem. God can sovereignly choose to favor any individual or people group to enact any divine purpose. What the dispensationalist would be careful to avoid is an insistence that all Jews would have to be saved to experience the favor of God granting them possession of the land promised to them at all points in biblical history. Possession of the land is not a salvation issue until the coming kingdom. No one enters into the coming Messianic kingdom, Jew or Gentile, without having peace with God. Before then, there is the possibility that Gods favor rains upon the unjust Jew in the land the same way it rains upon the just Jew. However, eternal life is not in view, only possession of the land.
This second proposition is extremely important to the authors of the Open Letter. I asked Fowler White for a clarification on the question of whether they viewed dispensational statements of God favoring Israel nationally as always salvific in nature. He responded: With statements about God favoring Israel nationally, no, we do not assume that such statements are automatically salvific in nature, but we do maintain that those statements claim a divine favor toward Israel that belongs to them apart from Christ and that distinguishes them from any other ethnic group. The issue we have with dispensationalism is perhaps more explicitly stated in the second proposition of the Open Letter itself
[41] After quoting the last two sentences of the second proposition, he adds the following clarification:
In short, we believe it compromises the Gospel to teach that the promises originally stated in the Abrahamic covenant are intended for anyone apart from Christ, the true Heir of Abraham, and for those ingrafted into His promises. To insinuate to the unbelieving Jew that, based on his first birth, he holds a perpetual title to the holy land by right of Gods gracious favor to him because of Abrahamor that, as a consequence, he has the right and title to drive out the present inhabitants from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt, as many dispensational teachers are now arguingis certainly to confound and compromise the Gospel that teaches that all those not believing in the Son remain in the wrath of God, whether Jew or Gentile (John 3:36). We do not see how it makes sense, biblically or logically, to say, as dispensationalists customarily do, that God, who dispersed Israel in AD 70, restored or regathered that nation, still in its unbelief, in AD 1948. Such claims require us to affirm, as clearly and unequivocally as we can, that apart from Christ, there is no special divine favor upon any member of any ethnic group; nor, apart from Christ, is there any divine promise of an earthly land or a heavenly inheritance to anyone, whether Jew or Gentile. To teach or imply otherwise is nothing less than to compromise the Gospel itself. Our hope is that you and other evangelicals, can join us in these affirmations.[42]
What this clarification shows, if I am reading it right, is that the Open Letter, at least on this point, has not really concerned itself primarily with two-covenant theology as discussed earlier. It views dispensationalism in general as violating the doctrine of salvation in some way when it allows any national favor to rest upon Israel apart from salvation in Christ. Thus, from the perspective of the Open Letter, God would never move in history to bring Israel back into the land in unbelief, if such action is seen as related to fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant. To preach that He would compromises the Gospel of Christ.
จากคุณ :
Bernadette  
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6 ก.ค. 50 18:07:12
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