Smoodock's Blog

According to dispensationalists, the prophecy of the union of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, symbolized by uniting the two sticks in Ezekiel 37, and the New Covenant, as described in Jeremiah 31:31-34, has not been fulfilled, but will be fulfilled in the millennium. During that time, there would be a physical Temple in literal Jerusalem, and physical Temple worship, which includes animal sacrifices, would be in place. Physical circumcision would be commanded, and gentile nations would need to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem during the annual Feast Days (according to Zechariah 14). In fact, this would represent two different redemptive plans: one for Israel and the other for gentiles who believed the Gospel during the Gospel age, which by the time of the millennium, the Gospel age and apparently the Gospel, itself, would cease to exist:

Dispensationalists insist that God has two redemptive plans, one for national Israel, and one for Gentiles during the “church age.” This presupposition forms the basis for the dispensational hermeneutic. As John Walvoord states regarding the dispensational hermeneutic, “Pretribulationism distinguishes clearly between Israel and the church and their respective programs.”[1]

How does this eschatological point of view fit the scriptures? If scripture cannot be broken, i.e. be made to contradict itself (John 10:35), could the idea of two redemptive plans and the reinstitution of the Law (in whatever modified form) be supported in the Bible? To begin with, I have to wonder how the Gospel age ends in light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:30, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” If Jesus’ words are not at the foundation of the redemptive plan for Israel, hasn’t Jesus’ words, for all intents and purposes, passed away? If this argument is valid, then we must choose who is correct, Jesus or the dispensationalists.

Moreover, under the New Covenant, we have come to Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the innumerable company of angels (Hebrews 12:22). In this context we are living stones, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices (1Peter 2:5). How would this fit into the context of a future physical Temple made of literal stones, wherein were offered physical sacrifices? Does such an idea make sense? If so, under what system of logic?

What happens to grace under the dispensational view of eschatology? If gentiles don’t make pilgrimages to Jerusalem during the annual Holy Days, they will find themselves under a curse (Zechariah 14:18)! Is this Biblical (Revelation 22:3)? Does this mean that gentiles, during the millennium **must** be saved according to the new (physical) covenant in which God saves Israel (as put forward by dispensationalism). Must gentiles become Jews during the millennium? Paul repudiated that idea in Galatians 3:3, when he asked, if what was begun in the Spirit was then made perfect by the flesh, meaning was the work of the Gospel perfected by going back to the Law?

Finally, I need to say something about the Millennial Temple that dispensationalists conclude will be built and used by Israel to worship God. First of all, it was a literal, physical Temple that Jesus claimed would be destroyed (Matthew 23:38), and its destruction would serve as the very sign he was in heaven, meaning he was God (Matthew 24:3, 30). Secondly, Paul claimed that God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24), because at best, a temple made with hands is but a mere copy of the true Temple (Hebrews 9:24). The greater and more perfect Tabernacle that Jesus entered was the one not made with hands (Hebrews 9:11)

Nearly every time the phrase, made with hands, is used in the New Testament, it is used of idolatry or the Temple that Jesus destroyed in 70 AD through Titus, the Roman general. If Paul preached that gods that were made with hands are no gods at all (Acts 19:26), and Stephen was stoned for saying the Temple of Jerusalem was made with hands (Acts 7:48-60), it seems to me that the phrase implies idolatry or at least that the Jews made the Temple an idol in their hearts. Knowing this, why would God have the Jews erect a physical Temple in Jerusalem either before or after Jesus (supposed) Second Coming? It certainly wouldn’t be the true Temple (Hebrews 9:24), and the word of God, which cannot be broken says God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands. For what reason would God have a Temple rebuilt for the Millennial Kingdom, especially, since the idea in the first place was man’s not God’s (Acts 7:45-50)?

Isn’t the doctrine of a future physical Temple of God, erected in physical Jerusalem for the purpose of worshiping God, and out of which Jesus would reign in a physical body, just another idea that man dreamed up? It certainly isn’t God’s idea.

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[1] See Eschatology Comparison.