Double-Vision In The Church
There is a chronic ailment affecting Church doctrine with very serious implications for Christian understanding: Israel and the Church are claimed to be two detached and distinct entities who are permanently divided. Are God’s people two divergent entities? In a significant sense this widespread error in theology mimics an equally extensive ailment in the medical field known as “Diplopia.” The Cleveland Clinic provides this definition: “Diplopia is the medical term for double vision or seeing double. Diplopia is defined as seeing two images of a single object when you’re looking at it.”
Two New Covenants?
There is a significant form of Diplopia ailing the modern Church. The popular scheme known as Dispensational Futurism, a 19th century invention of Darby and Scofield, encompasses a set of related “doubles” that are the core of their central beliefs. These imagined doubles are all interconnected and come under the theory known today as “Dual Covenant” or “Two Covenant” theology. This teaching claims that there are two New Covenants, one for the Jews and an entirely different one for Gentile Christians. Charles C. Ryrie, a prominent Dispensationalist and product of Dallas Theological Seminary, says this in his book, “The Basis of the Premillennial Faith” (Loizeaux Bros., 1953): “One cannot deny that the Church receives similar blessings to those of the new covenant with Israel…In the light of these facts, could it not be that there is a new covenant for the Church as well as a new covenant for Israel?” (pp. 117-118). The idea of two completely separate (and different?) New Covenants opens the door to a host of other theological mistakes.
The late president of Dallas Theological Seminary, John Flipse Walvoord, echoes this misleading thinking: “…it does not follow that the new covenant of the Old Testament is identical with the better covenant of Hebrews.” (ibid. p. 121) This argument is fallacious to begin with because Dispensationalists say that believing Gentiles are under the New Covenant, not under a different “Better Covenant.” This also ignores the fact that there is only one New Covenant in the entire Bible and that it is called “the Better Covenant” in the very same passage discussing the New Covenant (Heb. 8:6-11). Why would Gentiles be under a better covenant than God’s people Israel? It makes no sense!
Two different Salvation methods?
Biblical doctrines have consequences and are inter-related. If there are two separate and unique New Covenants, each of them must provide their own separate and unique salvation pathways. That is why many Dispensationalists teach that “Jews are saved by race, and Gentiles by grace.”
Theologian Jack Kelley says, “Two (or dual) covenant theology maintains that God’s covenant with the Jews is different than the one He gave the Gentiles and makes it unnecessary for them to receive Jesus as their Messiah to be saved.” (Gracethrufaith.com) This is a direct contradiction of Christ’s own words in John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
Two different Kingdoms?
This then naturally leads to an assertion that there are two different Divine Kingdoms. Jews will inherit the earth while Christians reign in Heaven (sometimes described as “Planet Heaven”). This is despite the fact that although the Apostle Matthew referred to “the Kingdom of Heaven,” it is not in Heaven but on earth (Matt. 6:10; Lk. 11:2). Israel and the Church never reign together on earth in the coming Millennium, they insist, because “Israel is promised permanent possession of the land.” (Ryrie, p. 74)
Two Israel’s? One Spiritual, One Physical?
Modern theology says that when a Jew accepts Christ, he ceases to be an Israelite. Some Dispensationalists go even further and say that proselytism—converting a Jew to Christianity—is a sin, because “it robs the heir of his covenanted inheritance” (Ryrie, p.83). Why would an Israel inheritance be lost through belief in Israel’s Messiah? It is simply baseless and illogical.
In what is undoubtedly the most important biblical statement concerning the New Covenant, both the Prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament and the author of Hebrews in the New, assert that this Divine contract is made only with Israel: “For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”(Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12)
The reason for the Churches double vision
What is the reason for the Churches double vision? Simply put, it is confusion over Israel. Popular theology claims that Israel and the Church are like water and oil, they do not mix in God’s plan and purposes. There is a scientific term for this. The science website “water-sparks.com” says, “Water and oil do not mix. They are said to beimmiscible. This is because water is a polar molecule – its structure means that it has a positive charge at one end and a negative charge at the other end. Water molecules stick together because the positive end of one water molecule is attracted to the negative end of another. The structure of an oil molecule is nonpolar. Its charge is evenly balanced rather than having one positive and one negative end.”
The “thoughtco.com” website says, “Chemistry has tricks for gettingand water to. For example, detergent works by acting as emulsifiers and surfactants. The surfactants improve how wellcanwith a surface, while the emulsifiers helpand water.” Yet in the Divine plan there is no legerdemain, sleight of hand or trick of modern science needed to combine Israel and the Church; under the New Covenant they are one and the same. In fact, no one can be saved without being a part of believing Israel, “ruling with God,” through belief in Christ.
Galatians 3:7 tells us,“Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” The Amplified Bible clarifies this further: “Know and understand that it is [really] the people [who live] by faith who are [the true] sons of Abraham.” (See also Gal. 3:29; Rom. 2:28-29).
Do the New Covenant, salvation, Israel, Divine Law (Moses’ Law vs. Jesus’ Law), the Kingdom of God, regeneration, and indwelling of the Holy Spirit all come in two disparate versions? Most importantly, are there two different ways of salvation, race and grace? Do Jewish people need to somehow actually prove their physical descent from Abraham to be saved? Or is this simply blurry vision? The answer is clear!
