Zola has been asked to contribute a chapter for an upcoming book of the
above title. This is part two of that chapter continued for your
edification.
Foreshadows of Wrath
(part 2)
by Zola Levitt
EDITORIAL CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE
Anti-Semitism: A Sign of the End
Anti-Semitism is the motivating factor of the Antichrist, as it is for
all of those who counterfeit or simply cannot accept the simple Gospel
of the Lord. Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Jews said, "If you're not
for me, you're against me," and the Antichrist is certainly first among
those who are against Him, and His people, at the end. It is amazing
that just a generation after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is obvious
again in the world today. In the United States and elsewhere, the Jews,
for reasons hard to understand, are despised with a special derision.
From American country clubs to Swiss banks to Oriental imaginings of
Jewish-caused economic problems, hatred of Israel and the Jewish people
is a normal state of affairs in this world. And increasing anti-Semitism
is a true symptom of the end of the age.
Anti-Semitism has a long history, much of it chronicled in
scripture. Moses' pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus and Titus
received scriptural credit, or were prophesied in scripture, but hatred
of the Jews did not let up after Biblical times. The coming of the
Moslems in the seventh century A.D. was the beginning of a perennial
prejudice against Israel as virulent today as it ever was. The Crusades,
the Inquisition and general discrimination against Jewish communities
throughout Europe and Russia kept the chosen people moving from place to
place in hope of respite. Finally in the United States, and seemingly
only there, did the soles of their feet find rest and there they
prospered.
But even in America, anti-Semitism has been a latent, but effective,
force against God's Chosen. We could take for granted a certain
amount of anti-Jewishness in the church, particularly in the "liberal"
churches. It was these very denominations who punished the Jews in
Europe throughout the Middle Ages. One does not normally find aversion
to the Jews among Bible-reading people, but occasionally the biases of
the denominations seem to infect the true believers. And even some
Biblical seminaries and colleges are going awry.
Because of a situation concerning my own son, I had to take action
against a certain textbook at a Bible college recently. I told the story
in a letter from our ministry and I will quote from that here. ". . . of
making many books there is no end" (Ecc. 12:12). That would be fine with
me if they were all good books. But sometimes I run into something
really discouraging. One of our ministry's most tedious duties is
responding to churches, seminaries and the like to correct their
anti-Israel and anti-Jewish biases. When my son Aaron went to a
Christian high school, a teacher said one day that Christianity did not
start in Israel, but actually in Greece. I ended up sitting in the
principal's office, having to inform a so-called Bible teacher that
thousands of people were saved in Israel at Pentecost, in Antioch, in
Ephesus, etc., before the Gospel took real root in Greece. I informed
him that Jesus Christ is Jewish. So were all of His disciples and all of
His apostles. I explained that all of the New Testament writers were
Jews and that Christianity is part and parcel of Judaism. I reminded him
that Jesus came to this earth and declared to His disciples, "Go not
into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter
ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew
10:5,6).
I was discouraged that this teacher, in a denominational school, had
so little comprehension of Scripture. Most of the large
denominations put the Bible away long ago and are almost unaware of the
roots of their faith. I was relieved when Aaron graduated and went on to
Dallas Baptist University, and then to The Criswell College to take up
serious Bible studies. But lately I have been very disappointed. A
perfectly awful textbook called A Survey of the New
Testament, by Robert H. Gundry, is in use at both colleges. It is
the most anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and Biblically wrong-headed textbook
I personally have ever seen. I used to teach at Dallas Baptist
University, and I realized then the sober responsibility of those who
would train future pastors and other ministry workers. I would not have
had such a book in the same building with my students.
Let me give you a few quotations:
- Trying to leave out the Jews, the author asserts, "'And
they glorified the God of Israel' (Matthew 15:31), shows
that the 4,000 whom Jesus now feeds are Gentiles."
This preposterous idea on the part of the one who said, "I am come only
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24) is followed
by a vain attempt to create a non-Jewish following of Jesus. The author
goes on, "Together then, with the preceding Gentile woman and, earlier,
the centurion and the Magi, they represent the great mass of Gentiles
who are flocking into the church of Matthew's time." Naturally, there
was no Church in Matthew's time, nor any "great mass of Gentiles" saved
in the Gospels, though they are to come in considerable numbers later
on.
- The author subscribes to Replacement Theology: "Matthew writes his
Gospel for the Church as the new chosen nation, which at least for the
time being has replaced the old chosen nation of Israel."
- "Luke was probably a Gentile ... his name is Greek. His facility in
using the Greek language also suggests that he was a Gentile ...." The
same things were true of Paul, certainly a Jew and a "Pharisee of
Pharisees." Other inane arguments on the point are contradicted by our
excellent study by Dr. McCall entitled
"Was Luke a Gentile?"
which appears in the March 1996 issue of the Levitt Letter. You
can read it on our website at www.levitt.com.
- When Peter converts Cornelius, he has to "defend himself against
parochially minded Jewish believers in Jerusalem who criticize his going
to the Gentiles." Naturally, these Jewish believers were questioning of
Peter because they had never seen Gentile salvation before. Evidently,
they missed author Gundry's 4,000 Gentiles fed, followed by "the great
mass of Gentiles flocking into the Church of Matthew's time." I could go
on and on. This is a book a competent Bible teacher can open almost
anywhere and want to laugh, or cry, out loud. Truly the author has an
agenda to promote an anti-Israel Replacement Theology doctrine, and he
utterly misunderstands the mission of Jesus Christ, who came, as He
said, to bring the Kingdom to Israel. If secular colleges are bothered
by PC (political correctness), the Bible colleges need to watch out for
PD (Progressive Dispensationalism), the awful doctrine behind these
distortions.
This must be the first book on the New Testament whose index does not
even mention Israel. The book refers to the land as Palestine, has a
map called "Palestine in the Time of Jesus" (as does the new MacArthur
Study Bible), and calls Peter, John, etc., Jesus' "Palestinian
disciples." I can't say it strongly enough: this textbook is a travesty.
I am amazed that any believing Christian anywhere would try to defend
it.
When Aaron originally came to me, troubled about what he was hearing in
class and reading in this textbook, I consulted Dr. Tom McCall, senior
theologian of our ministry, and asked what to do. Aaron had selected 49
different passages that were unacceptable, even to a 19-year old
freshman Bible student. Dr. McCall, an ordained Baptist minister and
theologian of great experience and skill, counseled me to schedule a
meeting with the college administration. We discussed the fact that
these two colleges were not unique. Dr. McCall mentioned other
conservative seminaries, including Moody Bible College and Dallas
Theological Seminary, whose doctrines concerning Israel seem to be
subject to Progressive Dispensationalism. I would appeal to our readers
and viewers to ask questions at their own Bible schools about such
doctrines as amillennialism, Progressive Dispensationalism, and all the
other fancy "isms" for cutting Israel and the Jews out of faith in the
Jewish Messiah. The problems seem endemic. Of course, the liberal
seminaries, the public media, and certain Christian magazines are a lost
cause on this issue. They have long ago written off the family of our
Lord.
But back to The Criswell College. Aaron and I met with the
President and the Executive Vice President, and we discussed his 49
points. We were treated courteously and both administrators
substantially agreed with all of our complaints. They seemed
disappointed and taken aback that such a textbook had gotten into their
college. They knew the author's doctrine was suspect, they admitted.
They told me they would correct the situation in good time. Two months
later, I was obliged to write and ask if anything was being done. And
nearly six months later, I finally received a letter defending the
textbook — even defending the use of the term Palestine for the
Israel of Jesus' time!
(Zola Levitt Ministries letter, June 1998)
It was a long battle just to get the attention of these college
administrators, notwithstanding that I had made my original
complaint six months previously. I was confronted with a situation where
I turned to my own readers in desperation. The above letter was received
at the beginning of June at The Criswell College but was ignored. Later
in June, Dr. McCall wrote a heartfelt letter to the president of
Criswell. That one received an answer some two months after it was
written and after we had reported this college to every relevant
authority we could think of. But the story has a relatively happy
ending. In a long letter that again defended the textbook and the
author, President C. Richard Wells finally stated the following:
"On the other hand, it is unquestionably true that Gundry's eschatology
differs from that which is stated in the Articles of Faith of The
Criswell College. Of course, as you would know from your own experience
in theological higher education, the use of a text does not imply that
either the professor or the institution agrees with everything in the
text. Still, in such cases, we (speaking of this institution) are duty
bound to make clear where and how a text differs from our doctrinal
position.
For some weeks, I have reflected on and prayed over your objections to
our use of the Gundry text, all in light of our obligation to teach
faithfully. My judgement is that, while it seems best not simply to
forbid outright any use whatsoever of the Gundry book, if a professor
has good reason for doing so, we should at the same time instruct
faculty to make clear where Gundry's text differs from the doctrinal
statement of The Criswell College.
As a practical matter, however, these strictures hardly appear
necessary. As Dr. Cooper indicated, the Gundry text was not used at all
in the spring semester. This fall, only one professor plans to use it
— and then only as a supplement to his two other primary texts.
(The professor is using it because of its superb chronological outline
of the New Testament, but is not requiring it to be read as a main
text.) At this point, we do not anticipate its use as a primary text in
the future."
At the same time, we received a rather angry letter from Zondervan
Publishing House and a 2000-word defense of his textbook from author
Gundry. Zondervan felt that my complaints were "reckless,
unjustified, arbitrary, and groundless" and said they had received "a
few letters and e-mail messages" from our viewers and readers. They were
sending the Gundry defense to those folks, and they threatened me that I
had to print it all if I were going to criticize it. In the end we
printed most of it, along with a critique by Dr. McCall. For your
edification, that
interesting debate is available in our September 1998
newsletter which you can find on the web at www.levitt.com.
Our viewers nationwide began to call their local seminary and
Christian college bookstores to determine which institutions were using
the textbook. We will eventually publish a complete listing of those
schools. There are plenty of other bad textbooks in our seminaries and
plenty of other seminaries that have fallen into this sort of doctrine.
I don't need to single out the ones mentioned other than tell my
personal experiences with them. As a matter of fact, our ministry made a
telephone survey of evangelical seminaries and determined that this
particular textbook is in use in about 50 of them nationwide. That is
approximately 15% of those listed in the National Evangelical Directory.
Some of the best-known names in Christian education are involved, I'm
afraid. We also discovered schools that sent the book back after
obtaining it from the publisher.
In view of the fact that Zondervan Publishing House claims to have
printed 250,000 copies over the nearly thirty years of the textbook's
three editions, a large number of church men and women have sat under
this sort of error. Almost 30 graduating classes are out there in
churches and ministries evidently believing that Jews are unimportant
and the church has replaced Israel.
(PART THREE CONCLUDED IN NEXT ISSUE)
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