I don't know where I got this picture from but I found it in My Pictures as I was rumaging. I happened to be rumaging the same day I was reading through N.T. Wright's new book, Surprised By Hope and was even furthered in my conviction that we've made a mountain out of a non-existing mole hill in our Lahaye, Left Behind fervor. I for one don't believe in any sort of rapture, but like the sign says, in case of rapture, my eschatology will change. But it almost seems like there is this fear in some churches that if you don't believe in the rapture you won't participate in the rapture. If the idea of the rapture is somewhat debatable in Scripture the idea that if you don't believe in it you don't participate in the 2nd coming is not.
Anyway, Wright does a great job of dispelling the 2 (that's right, only 2) proof-texts given in favor of a rapture in favor of a much more holistic and culturally plausible exegesis of those texts.
What? I saw this book in a local Christian bookstore the other day and I am actually really tempted to buy it. If there is anything I think that the Bible tries to make a case for it is Jesus's Messianic claim. I would interested to see how exactly Hagee argues for this. Without having read the book, this ad seems to say that Jesus himself never claimed to be the Messiah, was not therefore the Messiah, and therefore all of our Jewish hatred in Christian history has been unfounded and we should support Israel because Scripture clearly says we should do that.
First Problem:
Even if Jesus never claimed to be Messiah, that doesn't mean he wasn't. At least, that's what Peter and Paul think. If Jesus didn't intend to be the Messiah, we have some major doctrine of Scripture issues to work out because apparently none of the disciples got the memo.
Just doing a 5 second "biblegateway" search of the term "Christ" got me 467 times in the NT in which that term is used. Does Hagee think that was Jesus's last name or something? Any Greek-speaking Jew during the 1st century would have known "christos" to be the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew משיח or "anointed one," transliterated as Mashiach or Messiah. For more proof that this was how Paul took the term "Christ" see N.T. Wright's great book The Climax of the Covenant.
All 467 times aside though, is it true that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah?
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you—I am he."
John 4:24-26
Without the myriad of other texts in which Jesus implicitly (as well as explicitly) shows himself to be Messiah, I think this one should be given a second thought.
But, to be fair to Hagee, I have not yet read his book. He may have some good answers to these questions, but my guess is, if he wanted to overturn all of Church History's understanding of Scripture, his book might want to be a little longer.
Oh yeah, and if I can apply Ockham's Razor to this situation, we probably shouldn't hate Jews because Jesus says we shouldn't hate anyone and should love everyone, even our enemy. Something tells me Hagee made it more complicated than it needed to be.
In case your interested and follow up on NT scholarship and the current "New Perspective" debate, a new Piper book The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright was recently released. Now, I don't mean to betray my devotion to wtsbooks.com so you can still click on the link above and buy it from wtsbooks.com or you can click HERE and download the entire book from Piper's Desiring God website in pdf (just click on the small link 'read'). Either way, I am sure it will be a helpful read, whichever side of the debate you tend towards.
I don't know where I got this picture from but I found it in My Pictures as I was rumaging. I happened to be rumaging the same day I was reading through N.T. Wright's new book, Surprised By Hope and was even furthered in my conviction that we've made a mountain out of a non-existing mole hill in our Lahaye, Left Behind fervor. I for one don't believe in any sort of rapture, but like the sign says, in case of rapture, my eschatology will change. But it almost seems like there is this fear in some churches that if you don't believe in the rapture you won't participate in the rapture. If the idea of the rapture is somewhat debatable in Scripture the idea that if you don't believe in it you don't participate in the 2nd coming is not.
