Darby-ism, What is It, Who Started It, and Are Believers in It Doomed?

Originally posted by WarminIndy
You do realize that no one is really reading anything you write.

Laz reads what jmdewey writes.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Their idea of heaven isn't worshiping Jesus with song and dance and listening to Him tell you all the things you ever said why about and much more, but sitting around drinking coffee, reading books, and talking with each other about how evil the Jews were (careful not to let Abraham hear mind you) and how the modern state of Israel was worse than Nazi Germany.

Why must you smear your opponent as a hater of Jews? Further, how do you justify smearing the critics of the SECULAR state of "Israel"? It is a secular, governmental institution, and must take it on the chin like any other state - the tolerance we extend to a religious group does not apply here.

Jews - not evil

the Talmud - evil

Jewish-Occupied Palestine, aka "Israel" - evil

Christian apologists for "Israel" - bad, but not evil

reply to post by WarminIndy

You do realize that no one is really reading anything you write.

Whoa!

What the hell is your problem WarminIndy?
Who made you the hall-monitor and demigod of ATS's faith forum? Having a bad week, are we?

I read nearly everything jmdewey writes; he makes more sense than most people, even while he is studying and seeking. I respect his viewpoints, and at one point I did yours as well, but NO MORE.

The rapture is an invented, magical-thinking silliness of someone's fantastical imagination, and NOTHING MORE. What if you found out this Darby guy (which I appreciate dewey bringing up) was an opium addict?

You'd realize his 'profound revelation' is nothing different to when a stoner gets high and sees all sorts of 'correspondences' of things. Just saying.

Waching you fundies assault the studious is like listening to first graders argue about whether or not Santa Claus is too fat to fit down the chimney.

Originally posted by Lazarus Short

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Their idea of heaven isn't worshiping Jesus with song and dance and listening to Him tell you all the things you ever said why about and much more, but sitting around drinking coffee, reading books, and talking with each other about how evil the Jews were (careful not to let Abraham hear mind you) and how the modern state of Israel was worse than Nazi Germany.

Why must you smear your opponent as a hater of Jews?

They actually do that themselves.

Further, how do you justify smearing the critics of the SECULAR state of "Israel"? It is a secular, governmental institution, and must take it on the chin like any other state - the tolerance we extend to a religious group does not apply here.

Supporting them doesn't mean we agree with everything they do, it means we have their backs, we pray for them, we love them.

Christian apologists for "Israel" - bad, but not evil

I'll be there with Paul I suppose.

NOTurTypical sez:
They actually do that themselves.

Laz replies:
Then let them. Do not do it yourself out of thin air, without quotes to back you up. Aren't we told to be polite, be respectful, and stick to the facts?

NOTurTypical sez:
Supporting them doesn't mean we agree with everything they do, it means we have their backs, we pray for them, we love them.

Laz replies:
I don't support them, I don't have their backs, I don't pray for them, I do not love them. Let them repent, especially of their oppression of the Palestinians, who are their brothers, after all.

NOTurTypical sez:
I'll be there with Paul I suppose.

Laz replies:
I suspect Paul knew who true Israel was in his day, and I certainly do in mine. You need to know the difference.

I don't know why I came back here, i'm hoping that the ppl on this thread (and it seems so at least for now) wish to discuss the topic, not rip each other to shreds.

I was on another thread here "will catholics make the rapture" and frankly I didn't appreciate the non-justified antogonism & intellectual dishonesty that happened there, which is why I was so curt with the OP's post.

I'm new to ATS, but this aint my first rodeo about the topic, and frankly I wish the darby lie would just f#$%ing die.

Yes I'm a christian, I've been studying eschatology for 20 years and received revelation that most churches would dismiss out of hand, yet is scripturally accurate. (and i'm not talking harold camping nonsense either tyvm.

My only point is is that on MANY levels, biblical, factual, even the nature of God, the Darby argument is a flat out LIE. There are many instances quoting preachers dating all the way back from 1750 to Pseudo-Ephraim that suggest it. Then you have the dispensalist argument, God doesn't deal with Israel & the church at the same time, that the previous 483 years of the 490 were law, so the last 7 must equally be under the law. (Thus ending the time of the gentiles) That God stated he would not allow us to suffer his "wrath", the correlations between the Jewish wedding Ceremony & the rapture, and what Jesus said when He mentioned "In my father's house are many mansions..." The Matt 24 & Rev ch 6 correlations...

I could go on & on & on, but really what's the point? As you can tell I've reached a point in my walk where I tire arguing with armchair quarterback christians who don't have the knowledge of the scriptures & then give me bs about my arguments when they're the lazy ones not studying to show themselves approved. (I know that may sound like a boast, it isn't) If it weren't true, I wouldn't have to make presentations to churches with my laptop b/c "Revelations" is just to darn scary to teach. Boogie boogie.

So, I leave you with this post, hopefully some of you will take the time to look at the topics I mentioned, and decide for yourself what is true & what isn't.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

He made an everlasting land covenant with Abraham's natural seed, and the church wasn't a party to that covenant.

What would be the requirement to be considered as "a party"? How about Jesus, would he be a representative for the church to make a contract? Or are you adding that to your list of things Jesus is not?

Isn't that a "Dispensation"? One way God deals with Jew and Gentile to another way God deals with Jew and Gentile? You've just pointed out a "Dispensation" ending and another one beginning.

Yes it is and why I did not make a thread title condemning dispensationalism because it is only the Darby version which is a problem.

(And that "blindness" both Christ and Paul say is NOT permanent)

"Blindness" is an older, and just one translation but most versions say, hardened, which is closer to the Greek word which is to be calloused. The "temporary" nature of this hardening is something people can interpret from verse 25 where it says "until the full number of the Gentiles has come in" where an aristocratic person like Darby would believe that God is going to give him prophetic vision to figure out when this time may be, as if Paul was giving a specific date. To me, I see no reason to think Paul meant that there was somehow going to be a time when the coming of men to salvation is going to come to a halt. This is probably where it becomes convenient to inject a rapture and a Armageddon and maybe some Gog and Magog and a few beasts and dragons and things to where the shear force of numbers will prevent the increase of man until there just is no one left alive on the planet to receive the message and come to believe. I think this is an artificial construct meant to force the issue to make a consummation of death so that one way or anther, verse 25 will be "fulfilled".

(And what may I ask you is the purpose of "provoking them to jealousy" if you don't plan on redeeming them in the future as well? Makes no sense any other way.)

You skipped over verses 3 & 4 which illustrate a point Paul makes elsewhere, that there is a remnant, and that not everyone born into Israel is of Israel. Verses 3 & 4 explain that though Israel as a whole is corrupt, there are people who maintain the concept of an elect people but their inclusion is not corporate but on an individual bases and one connected to obedience. We know in the New Testament Era that obedience is the belief in God's son, Jesus.

(How much more their restoration?)

This is probably just pointing out to the gentiles that if they failed in their election and God had to restore the former, what would end up would be better than them because of how far they had fallen and how long it would take the gentiles to get up to that same level.

(These "dead" branches will be grafted back in... and Paul is about to tell you when, remember Jesus alluded to it before entering Jerusalem on a donkey.)

This is a conditional statement by Paul, describing what could happen if Christians were to fail in their election.

("Musterion" in the Greek is not like we use "mystery" in English. It's not meant like some enigmatic thing that's hard to interpret. Musterion in the Greek means something that has been hidden until this point is now being revealed, like a combination for a safe, or a password for a computer. And "until" means it's not permanent, there will be an end to their "blindness" from verse 7.)

The mystery is about the hardness of heart and it goes back to Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews, who became the Israelites by being forced across the Red Sea. It kept them from being assimilated into oblivion in Egypt. Likewise, Jesus believers were forced by the hardness of the Jews out of the synagogue and to becoming a distinct people of the elect who heard the calling of election through Christ.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

(BTW, that's the return of Christ, Romans was after the ascention.)

John 7:35
The Jews then said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find Him? He is not intending to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks, is He?

If you look at the OT stories such as Hezekiah and Josiah, you see that their way of saving Judah was by concentrating the worship of the people to the single spot, which was what they called Zion, which is the mountain top, so to speak, which the Temple of YHWH sat upon. This was to them the prescribed place to encounter YHWH, delegitimizing sacrificial worship anywhere else. Here was Jesus, in this story, right on this spot, within sight of where the official sacrifices were going on, talking about going somewhere where they could not go. They we concerned that he was going to the gentiles and the diaspora where he would be out of reach of their authority.
I am saying this in relation to this concept of "all Israel will be saved" in Romans 11:26. Another thing Jesus says in the Gospel of John is that:
John 4:23
But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

The Jews had their temple cult worship and they looked at how that was to them the great work that showed how righteous they were and relied on that to the point that when the call from God came to take it to the next level, they missed it on account of the pride they had in their own material accomplishments.
What Paul is talking about is that call, for a spiritual sort of works, went out in the person of Jesus. The Jews rejected it, so the call went out into the diaspora which to the officials of the temple would have been seen as the toll of doom upon their own activity and the source of their pride being in the physical works. If everyone took up a spiritual form of religion, their stone temple would have been relegated to obscurity.
I think when Paul says "all" of Israel, it has to mean the diaspora, meaning all the descendants of Israel spread out over the entire world, and in opposition to the idea that the true Israel can be contained in this small Roman ruled province of the Palestine high country around Jerusalem. How it happens is by the gentiles taking up the call in a big way, which spreads out to the diaspora and serves as a witness to the sons of Israel that here is a religion presenting itself as the fulfillment of their very own national religion which makes them a people, but they believe in something which is suitable to their condition which is being far away from the single physical location where they would be doing their physical prescribed work necessary to be considered included in the nation. This also is useful after the destruction of the temple to where that is not even an option, so when that event occurs, here is the alternative right in front of them in the form of gentiles calling themselves the spiritual Israel and the result of where their ancient religion was headed to all along, since the time of their father Abraham.

(israel will be regathered and redeemed for the Father's sake.)

This regathering is a rationalization to explain what "saved" means and is one opinion of how that happens and probably is what you would call a literal interpretation where I would call it a physical interpretation where "gather" to you means into a specific geographical location. You are taking concepts from other books in the OT and forcing it into Paul's writing to make it be an outcome favorable to a result you had already decided on. When I say "you" I really mean Darby, and you are just following along with his ideas, though you learned then through an intermediary teacher.
Paul is explaining all this for God's sake in that he is explaining that the gentiles being elected through Christ was not abandoning the people of His earlier covenant, but the way is made to where they do not have to just fade off into oblivion. One of the things I found out while studying the history of the Septuagint was that there was a huge Jewish population in North Africa, including Alexandria which took to Christianity when it presented itself.

(Remember, Biblical repentance means changing one's mind, ^ God will never change His mind in regards to His calling and election.)

Yes, God sent Israel's redeemer.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

So what does that have to do with Jesus? He saves. His righteousness is what clothes us and we are washed and cleaned by His Spirit.

Jesus came to save the world, that's in John 3:16 but read the next verse and it describes how it happens, by people living righteously. We are not just saved to have some sort of afterlife, without improving the world we live in. It is this world right now, which everyone who is alive lives in, that is saved.
So if you are describing a symbolic cleansing just to get us into heaven, then you are describing something you made up and has nothing to do with the biblical version of salvation.

It's a realization God exists outside of time, He sees the end from the beginning. It's understanding of Physics. John Calvin had no clue when he formulated his TULIP doctrine.

You are just talking in a circle and you are not saying how your belief is any different fundamentally from Calvin's.

He is Lord, when you're saved you declare that.

In that case, everyone is saved in the end.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

They actually do that themselves.

You have a highly distorted view of what a Jew hater is.
I don't think Israel is legitimate as a state and its leaders should be up on trial for war crimes just like at Nuremberg.
Being against criminality does not mean I hate Jews, it is just that I am against evil.
The fact that you support evil makes all your theology suspect.

reply to post by schadenfreude

My only point is is that on MANY levels, biblical, factual, even the nature of God, the Darby argument is a flat out LIE. There are many instances quoting preachers dating all the way back from 1750 to Pseudo-Ephraim that suggest it. Then you have the dispensalist argument, God doesn't deal with Israel & the church at the same time, that the previous 483 years of the 490 were law, so the last 7 must equally be under the law. (Thus ending the time of the gentiles) That God stated he would not allow us to suffer his "wrath", the correlations between the Jewish wedding Ceremony & the rapture, and what Jesus said when He mentioned "In my father's house are many mansions..." The Matt 24 & Rev ch 6 correlations...

You are just alluding to things but not actually explaining anything to the point where this becomes any sort of useful information.
You may want to break this down a bit and give some quotations and references and citations, otherwise this all just goes right over anyone's head trying to read it.

I did post two replies above (on this page) in response to NOTurTypical's post that was on the first page. I had to get some sleep to be able to write it and did some checking into the themes of Paul in Romans in a book I just got and had not had a chance to look into too much but I would recommend people reading to be up to date on the current theological issues involved in understanding the Book of Romans. I go to a lot of trouble analyzing what is out there in order to get the best books since I can only buy so many and I have to make my dollars count. So here is what I advise everyone to read: Justification and Variegated Nomism: The Paradoxes of Paul, Carson, D. A.
It's a big fat book and I was able to get a good used copy that looks like a new book, for not much money, and worth every cent, and if you want to know what the top mainstream theologians think, then buy this book and read it. Of course I don't agree on some of it since I decided to take an extreme view on rapture as being a description of judgement day as understood in Judaism in Paul's day, and not something new to Christianity.

reply to post by jmdewey60


I'll tentatively respond to your post since you showed manners and decorum to mine. (I view civility in very high regard) Nevertheless, I know my post was rushed, it wasn't expanded on on purpose, why?

Because that's the MILK, you understand? Every single eschatologist worth his weight in spit should be able to easily discern the connotations of what I wrote, the only one that MAY cause a momentary brain fart is the one where I mentioned Matt 24 & Rev 6. Christians use the "no man knows the day or hour" verse like a club, and then beat you to death with it, irregardless of the context of the chapter. Briefly however, if you read where Jesus says "then there shall arise false christs and false prophets, and continue you'll see that follows LINE BY LINE what's mentioned in Rev 6, with the exception of the death of 25% of the world's population! This was a dual prophecy, partially fulfilled by Titus, and ultimately fulfilled at future time.

As for the rest of your post, I don't bother with what new theologians say, b/c frankly it's "dark" out there, and will only get darker. Truth isn't important, only money, power, and fame. The church has lost her "first love" and paid for His replacement with 30 pieces of silver. (This is ATS, do I really need to explain the idea of corruption, even within the churches?)

The world is winning it's NWO against US b/c the salt has "lost it's flavor", not the other way around. God's "church" isn't losing ground, she's gaining ground by leaving the institutional learning, and relying on the Spirit. (Your theology reference btw, may be legit, but in this current time I would rather ask the Spirit for better understanding, rather than a man, b/c I know I won't be deceived by it.) Plus, I have brothers & sisters who view christianity as a way of life, not merely as a "religion" that help keep me in check, and guess what? Online/offline, different states, & even countries they say the same thing universally: Shed what the world views as important, tv, money, power, and clean up your act and reach others. Wake up those you can, and dust the soles of your feet for those you cant. There's no point in re-chewing your food anymore, God is hardening ppl's hearts for the final outcome.

I hope God shows you the same amount of grace, wisdom & knowledge that he has shown me. Don't rely so much on the words of men.

God bless.

reply to post by schadenfreude


Jesus said, "I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world."
Seems to me a lot of people are bent on making Jesus destroy the world.
This would be a contradiction and how do you reconcile this in your mind?

Got a new book in the mail yesterday, called The Rhetoric of Romans (Argumentative Constraint and Strategy and Paul's Dialogue with Judaism) by Neil Elliott.
On page 40, in the introduction, the author quotes another author saying that Paul has to be careful in how he describes to the gentiles what happened to the Jews as a result of their rejecting Jesus. The reason being, according to the quoted author, that how would the gentiles feel safe in that God is going to keep the promise to them if he took back the ones with the Jews.
Elliott answers that by saying there is no evidence that was ever the case, that the gentile believers in Jesus were ever worried since their status with God was based on their belief in Jesus, so as long as they had that, then they were fine, in their own minds.
If anything, Elliott goes on to say, Paul had to shake them up in their complacency, and to not let their confidence grow into pride, and then become like the Jews had been, which was a source of their downfall.

reply to post by jmdewey60

The reason being, according to the quoted author, that how would the gentiles feel safe in that God is going to keep the promise to them if he took back the ones with the Jews.

What promises did God "take back" from the Jews?

reply to post by NOTurTypical

You might want to read that again and look for the word, if.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Got a new book in the mail yesterday, called The Rhetoric of Romans (Argumentative Constraint and Strategy and Paul's Dialogue with Judaism) by Neil Elliott.

Coolio!!
Keep us posted, dewey, as to further insights and critiques of the material.
I admit just the title sounds over my head, but that's not surprising. I'm still a junior in this business...you're a grad student...if not a doctoral candidate!

If anything, Elliott goes on to say, Paul had to shake them up in their complacency, and to not let their confidence grow into pride, and then become like the Jews had been, which was a source of their downfall.

So, he had to be careful to let them know at all? In case they just took it as granted?

Can you explain it a little bit more?
I think I'm understanding that he was saying the Jews lost their place as the Chosen Ones, and the Gentiles were his new BFFs, but they also could lose that status in the clique. Am I getting the point?

Do you agree? I don't think I've heard your thoughts on Paul's veracity or agenda....

I had never heard of such a thing before recently discovering that you all brought it up. I gather that the Hellenist version was more akin to what I'm leaning toward as accuracy;

and understand the theory that Paul was "converted" during an inquiry/investigation to rout out the early Christians (thus betraying his employer's wishes).
Do you believe that was the case?

reply to post by jmdewey60


Yes, you said the Gentile should look at the example of God 'taking back" promises to the Jews. So my question is, which promises did God take back from the Jews? Chapter and verses please.

reply to post by wildtimes

Do you believe that was the case?

No, meaning, not as people understand the circumstances as described in the Book of Acts.
I have gone into this a few times with Akragon, where he has Paul as some sort of hit man.
That just isn't the case, for example Acts has him on the scene of the Stoning of Stephen,
where according to Paul, as in his own writings, he was not there and the people of Judea
did not even know him by name.
The "persecution" Paul was engaged in was to go to the meetings of Christians and get into
an argument with them to get them to contradict each other and to make them seem to others
as being foolish or just not knowing what they were talking about.

So, he had to be careful to let them know at all? In case they just took it as granted?

These are virtual minefields when you get into these issues so you have to ask yourself "according to who" whenever you make any sort of definitive statement. Elliot seems not so partisan to me and remains rather neutral and looks for the best evidence to support different viewpoints. He is saying the gentile Christians of Rome already understood 'replacement theory' before Paul had any contact with them.
Elliot's main theory centers around conduct, as being the main thrust of what Paul wanted to get across in Romans, where the people had the idea about belief, and its role, but were lacking in regards their deportment, where to Paul, they should concede to the Jews in matters of keeping towards what looked like an abiding to a law of life, though they understood that from the legal side of it, as in regarding the Law being an actual authority, there really was only the Law of Faith.
Righteousness has to be always seen as the real goal, regardless of what the religion is, that the desire of God is a godly people, not a bunch of people feeling smug about being "saved".

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Yes, you said the Gentile should look at the example of God 'taking back" promises to the Jews. So my question is, which promises did God take back from the Jews? Chapter and verses please.

You might want to review 1Cor 10:1-10 and Hebrews chapter 4. Both of these passages deal with the supposed generation of Israelites who left Egypt to go to the so-called promised land. They all(but two) died, leaving their corpses scattered all over the desert.

1 Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
. . .
11 Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
- 1Cor 10 - WEB -

Hebrews Chapter 4
1 Let us fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest. 2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard. 3 For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest;” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
. . .
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day.

There seems to be a certain theme throughout the New Testament that mentions the futility of people claiming to be "children of promise" based on parentage or whether they have a stone temple or code of law. If these earthly things which some consider to be great signs of divine blessing are all they're claimed to be then surely no disaster could have touched them. The first temple would still stand. Such isn't the case. The supposed first invasion of conquest (Exodus - Joshua) would have been final, rather than a second or third military conquest of already inhabited land being required.

If righteousness were through the Law then nothing else would be required.