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Hal Lindsey and Biblical Prophecy
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September 19, 2013
‘Hal Lindsey and Biblical Prophecy’ is actually authored by Cornelius VanderWaal. Theodore Plantinga is the translator. The title is a bit of a misnomer in the sense that, while Lindsey is the catalyst, he is not necessarily the primary target; his methodology is.
This is an extraordinary book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The author spends a great deal of time debunking the whole Dispensationalist methodology because, as he put it, it would serve little purpose to root out Lindsey, to simply have another weed grow in his place.
Vanderwaal begins with a short survey of Church history in order to demonstrate that the apocalyptic fascination which is so important to the Dispensationalist cause has its roots in heretical sects outside the Church. Many of Lindsey's assertions can be found scattered across history in fringe movements that met with self-imposed disaster.
VanderWaal not only provides a scathing review of Dispensationalism in general, and Lindsey’s work in particular, he also offers an excoriating critique of the Reformed thinkers' failure to offer anything better. At the center of his critique is the doctrine of the covenant. He demonstrates from multiple sources how Reformed theologians have neglected their own principle of covenantal continuity when it comes to exegesis of the New Testament in general, and Revelation in particular. So while Reformed ministers are not stumped at how to preach from Leviticus or Chronicles and see how its covenantal nature makes it applicable to the Church, they have failed to apply the covenant paradigm to Revelation and have treated it as if it weren’t a covenantal book. By doing this, they have fostered the same nonsensical framework of thinking which engenders Dispensationalism. VanderWaal repeatedly essentially says, “Why criticize someone else’s fallacious theology when you haven’t offered anything any better?” The real battle, he points out is not between the Church and the World (the Christians vs pagan Rome), but between the true Church and the false church.
He also noted that a few theologians have dared to assert the covenantal nature of Revelation, but they have generally been laughed out the room because of the prevalence of the notion that Revelation is political in nature. This has had the effect of undermining the authority and unity of Scripture. Revelation is treated as some esoteric book with no discernible connection or relation to the rest of Scripture. It does no good to deny the assertion when one hasn’t provided the church with an alternative.
VanderWaal finishes up by giving a short example of what this covenantal exegesis of Revelation would look like by demonstrating his suggestion from Revelation 17 & 18, the chapters most often interpreted in a political way.
The book ends with the same warning it began with about the degenerate proclivity to ‘apocalyptic’ visions of the future. He writes, “It may sound harsh, but in essence this yearning for apocalypticism is a love of false prophecy, of prophecy rooted in man's own heart and mind and will. We may never allow our needs and desires to dictate our interpretation of the book of Revelation.”
The final words of the book are: “Perhaps the most unusual thing about Revelation is that it's an ordinary Bible book. May the challenge of Hal Lindsey and the confusion about the book of Revelation open our eyes again to the message Jesus preaches at the end of the Bible, namely, that our covenant God remains the same in His grace and in His wrath. He is the God ‘who is and who was and who is to come’ (Rev. 1:4).”
This is an extraordinary book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The author spends a great deal of time debunking the whole Dispensationalist methodology because, as he put it, it would serve little purpose to root out Lindsey, to simply have another weed grow in his place.
Vanderwaal begins with a short survey of Church history in order to demonstrate that the apocalyptic fascination which is so important to the Dispensationalist cause has its roots in heretical sects outside the Church. Many of Lindsey's assertions can be found scattered across history in fringe movements that met with self-imposed disaster.
VanderWaal not only provides a scathing review of Dispensationalism in general, and Lindsey’s work in particular, he also offers an excoriating critique of the Reformed thinkers' failure to offer anything better. At the center of his critique is the doctrine of the covenant. He demonstrates from multiple sources how Reformed theologians have neglected their own principle of covenantal continuity when it comes to exegesis of the New Testament in general, and Revelation in particular. So while Reformed ministers are not stumped at how to preach from Leviticus or Chronicles and see how its covenantal nature makes it applicable to the Church, they have failed to apply the covenant paradigm to Revelation and have treated it as if it weren’t a covenantal book. By doing this, they have fostered the same nonsensical framework of thinking which engenders Dispensationalism. VanderWaal repeatedly essentially says, “Why criticize someone else’s fallacious theology when you haven’t offered anything any better?” The real battle, he points out is not between the Church and the World (the Christians vs pagan Rome), but between the true Church and the false church.
He also noted that a few theologians have dared to assert the covenantal nature of Revelation, but they have generally been laughed out the room because of the prevalence of the notion that Revelation is political in nature. This has had the effect of undermining the authority and unity of Scripture. Revelation is treated as some esoteric book with no discernible connection or relation to the rest of Scripture. It does no good to deny the assertion when one hasn’t provided the church with an alternative.
VanderWaal finishes up by giving a short example of what this covenantal exegesis of Revelation would look like by demonstrating his suggestion from Revelation 17 & 18, the chapters most often interpreted in a political way.
The book ends with the same warning it began with about the degenerate proclivity to ‘apocalyptic’ visions of the future. He writes, “It may sound harsh, but in essence this yearning for apocalypticism is a love of false prophecy, of prophecy rooted in man's own heart and mind and will. We may never allow our needs and desires to dictate our interpretation of the book of Revelation.”
The final words of the book are: “Perhaps the most unusual thing about Revelation is that it's an ordinary Bible book. May the challenge of Hal Lindsey and the confusion about the book of Revelation open our eyes again to the message Jesus preaches at the end of the Bible, namely, that our covenant God remains the same in His grace and in His wrath. He is the God ‘who is and who was and who is to come’ (Rev. 1:4).”
March 23, 2018
Vanderwaal was attacked for his rhetoric, but is it any worse than Lindsey or Hunt’s saying that anyone who disagrees with them wants to exterminate the Jews (Lindsey, Road to Holocaust, 332)? Let’s get beyond rhetoric and into substance.
Key thesis: Revelation is a covenantal book through and through (Vanderwaal 10).
The book gives more of the context on why something like Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth became so popular, rather than in detailed refutations of Lindsey. Of course, Vanderwaal does show why Lindsey is wrong.
The book's value is not in an earth-shattering refutation of dispensationalism (and there is a dated problem with the book, which I will mention at the end). Rather, it exposes some weird problems that must entail given Dispensationalism.
Odd problems in dispensationalism: if the church age will end, and if there will be believers in the Tribulation, then the church isn’t the mother of believers. We await another mother, a Jewish one (30).
Another odd problem: One of the weirder problems in Gogology is that many Russians converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages, which means a lot of Jews in Eastern Europe have Russian blood. Now, Israel = Gog!
Key point: The church of the new covenant can never be viewed as part of Israel in the sense that it stands next to the Jewish people of our time, with the latter regarded as another part of Israel or the rest of Israel. The Bible stresses that the New Testament church is a continuation of Israel. The Jews who refuse to believe in the Messiah can no longer lay claim to the old covenant titles. This is the point on which everything hinges (30).
Vanderwaal’s main criticism of Lindsey’s use of biblical prophecy is that as prophecy relates to the future, it does so in a covenant context. This means that some of the predictions are conditional upon repentance (Micah 3:12). If this isn’t the case, then some biblical prophecies are simply false.
Israel in the bible means “people of the covenant” (56).
Argument: If Jesus is the Covenant Prophet (Dt 17), then anyone who does not listen to him is cut off from the covenant. Minor premise: Israel did not listen to him. Conclusion: Ethnic Israel is cut off.
Further, the desolating sacrilege = future apostasy on the part of the covenant people (60).
The Last Days
Vanderwaal, while firmly rejecting premillennialism, also distances himself from Augustine’s platonizing (66-67).
Vanderwaal's Constructive Proposal
As Gary North said, you can't beat something with nothing. Vanderwaal suggests Revelation is a covenant document detailing Yahweh's coming destruction of Old Covenant Israel.
Babylon = Jerusalem. Summarizing Holwerda (106):
(1)It is apparent from Revelation 2:9 that John knows of a community that claims to be a congregation of the living God but is really a synagogue of satan.
(2)Revelation 17 clearly echoes Exodus 16 and 23, where Israel is branded a harlot who fails to keep the covenant.
(3)The great city is also mentioned in Revelation 11:8, where a political-cultural interpretation is out of the question. This suggests that Babylon should not be identified as a political-cultural entity in Revelation 17 and 18 either.
(4)It is made clear in the book of Acts (see 2:23; 3:13; 4:10; 5:30; 7:52) that it was Jerusalem that opposed Jesus, although Rome did in fact carry out the death sentence. Jesus was crucified in the great city that is Spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.
(5) It is apparent from Revelation 18:20 that when the harlot is destroyed, God is squaring accounts because of what she has done to the prophets and apostles. Four verses later we read: "In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints."
Admittedly, he makes a strong case. How can someone who is not Yahweh's bride be a harlot to Yahweh? This is why Babylon must be Jerusalem, not Rome (or Masonic London). Nonetheless, if this isn't a futurist document, then what do we make of Revelation 20:11ff to the end? Vanderwaal cannot take his preterist (though he never calls it that) conclusions to that point.
October 25, 2012
This book might have been useful if it wasn't so caustic.
Now, I am not a dispensationalist, and I am definitely not a Hal Lindsey fan (well, he apparently loves Jesus so I guess I'm a fan or him personally, but you know what I mean). I kinda was looking for a book that would tear his theology to shreds because it is pretty bad. But this book just was more abrasive and grating than it was helpful.
What do I mean by that? Well, it starts out with lamenting how Christians have dared to stray from the reformed confessions (because apparently a bunch of men who lived 1,500 years after Christ knew the truth of God and the Bible's teachings perfectly and you are a "revolutionary" if you interpret the Bible differently). We tragically live in an age where "anyone can be an authority on Biblical interpretation" (pg. 16). I guess someone with a Master of Theology degree is an "anyone" if they didn't go to he right seminary (Lindsey holds a Th.M degree)...
In a previous review, I said that John Gerstner in Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism represented much of what is wrong with a lot of Reformed theological writings (and I say that as something of a Calvinist, mind you). A lot of the same is true with this book (except that Gerstner's book had more strong arguments against dispensationalism). It's very stern and cold just unpleasant when it didn't have to be. It makes a lot of claims and doesn't give nearly enough scripture to back them up because, hey, the confessions already tell us what the truth is! I agree that chilliasm (pre-millenialism) is false. However, if the book is looking at dispensational premillenialism, a little more than just assuming that it is clearly false because of whatever his reasoning was would be helpful.
Like Gerstner, Vanderwaal just seems to reach for anything to use to attack his opponent. The term "benefit of the doubt" doesn't enter the discussion...He accuses Hal Lindsey of preaching "Christian Gnosticism" (pg. 55) which is either slander, or demonstrative that Vanderwaal doesn't know what gnosticism is...Less outrageous but still worthy of scratching one's head is what Vanderwall says on pages 46-47. He chides Lindsey for contrasting the perfect accuracy of God's prophecy to the imperfect guesses of horoscopes and mediums. To lump them together is to legitimize the latter (regardless of the fact that, as Vanderwall even concedes, Lindsey was contrasting them). Indeed, Vanderwaal is right that there is more to prophecy than predictons, and prophecy from God is unique from (not just better than) other sources of man-made religious predicitons. But the fact that Hal Lindsey would appeal to how the Bible is better (as opposed to appealing to it being different) when reaching out to a mized audience that included unbleievers is at most a minor error. Hal Lindsey should have put more emphasis on the fact that prophecy from God is a whole different animal from horoscopes and stonehenge...I get it. But that hardly amounts to a putting God's prophets "on the same level as heathen priests." Call me crazy, but appealing to the accuracy of God's word in contrast to other "prophecy" hardly seems to me like a "fundamental error."
Then again, maybe it is. WHy do I say that? Well, the most outlandish statement came about on page 55, when looking at the flaws in Hal Lindsey's approach to prophecy and modern events. Now, I think Hal Lindsey is wrong about most of his predictions, but I still cannot believe this statement:
"If the political events of our time are to be used as confirmations and fulfillments of the Bible's prophecies, do we still need faith"
Do we still need faith? If the Bible was to accurate predict events in our day and be confirmed, that would negate faith?! And then...
"More specifically, do we still need the foolishness of the cross?"
In politics, you can end discussion by calling your opponent a racist. In theology, you, you accuse them of error and bring up the cross in that same sentence...And more importantly, following that logic, we would have to reject apologetics altogether. After all, apologetics may the cross look less foolish! So then, Hal Lindsey, by expecting prophecies in the Bible (that he wrongly attributes to World War II in the next few decades) to come true and make God look good is negating the need for faith. Wow...
The biblical arguments are good at parts, built they weren't as good as I expected. For the first 1/3 of the book we hardly got any scripture at all; it was just a bunch of anti-dispensationalist rhetoric and complaints about how Christians just aren't behaving themselves by straying from the reformed confessions. Looking back, most of it was more about what is wrong with the books on Revelation today, an overview of how so many fall short of reading it how Vanderwaal says it is to be read. We get it - a lot of commentators think Babylon is Rome! I agree with Vanderwaal that it is Jerusalem and the book is primarily about A.D. 70, but it was a lot of polemic and rhetoric, some of it very over the top, and this overshadowed the moments where a good, biblical point was made.
It also had a lot of typographical errors. I didn't count but on a number of occasions, chapters and verses in "Exodus" is mentioned, even though what we are told is there is not there 9or even in the book of Exodus). If you were to look in those parts of Ezekiel, you would find it, so I think we know what happened there. That in itself isn't a big deal, but this book didn't have a lot of slack left to give...
There are better books out there on the topic.
Now, I am not a dispensationalist, and I am definitely not a Hal Lindsey fan (well, he apparently loves Jesus so I guess I'm a fan or him personally, but you know what I mean). I kinda was looking for a book that would tear his theology to shreds because it is pretty bad. But this book just was more abrasive and grating than it was helpful.
What do I mean by that? Well, it starts out with lamenting how Christians have dared to stray from the reformed confessions (because apparently a bunch of men who lived 1,500 years after Christ knew the truth of God and the Bible's teachings perfectly and you are a "revolutionary" if you interpret the Bible differently). We tragically live in an age where "anyone can be an authority on Biblical interpretation" (pg. 16). I guess someone with a Master of Theology degree is an "anyone" if they didn't go to he right seminary (Lindsey holds a Th.M degree)...
In a previous review, I said that John Gerstner in Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism represented much of what is wrong with a lot of Reformed theological writings (and I say that as something of a Calvinist, mind you). A lot of the same is true with this book (except that Gerstner's book had more strong arguments against dispensationalism). It's very stern and cold just unpleasant when it didn't have to be. It makes a lot of claims and doesn't give nearly enough scripture to back them up because, hey, the confessions already tell us what the truth is! I agree that chilliasm (pre-millenialism) is false. However, if the book is looking at dispensational premillenialism, a little more than just assuming that it is clearly false because of whatever his reasoning was would be helpful.
Like Gerstner, Vanderwaal just seems to reach for anything to use to attack his opponent. The term "benefit of the doubt" doesn't enter the discussion...He accuses Hal Lindsey of preaching "Christian Gnosticism" (pg. 55) which is either slander, or demonstrative that Vanderwaal doesn't know what gnosticism is...Less outrageous but still worthy of scratching one's head is what Vanderwall says on pages 46-47. He chides Lindsey for contrasting the perfect accuracy of God's prophecy to the imperfect guesses of horoscopes and mediums. To lump them together is to legitimize the latter (regardless of the fact that, as Vanderwall even concedes, Lindsey was contrasting them). Indeed, Vanderwaal is right that there is more to prophecy than predictons, and prophecy from God is unique from (not just better than) other sources of man-made religious predicitons. But the fact that Hal Lindsey would appeal to how the Bible is better (as opposed to appealing to it being different) when reaching out to a mized audience that included unbleievers is at most a minor error. Hal Lindsey should have put more emphasis on the fact that prophecy from God is a whole different animal from horoscopes and stonehenge...I get it. But that hardly amounts to a putting God's prophets "on the same level as heathen priests." Call me crazy, but appealing to the accuracy of God's word in contrast to other "prophecy" hardly seems to me like a "fundamental error."
Then again, maybe it is. WHy do I say that? Well, the most outlandish statement came about on page 55, when looking at the flaws in Hal Lindsey's approach to prophecy and modern events. Now, I think Hal Lindsey is wrong about most of his predictions, but I still cannot believe this statement:
"If the political events of our time are to be used as confirmations and fulfillments of the Bible's prophecies, do we still need faith"
Do we still need faith? If the Bible was to accurate predict events in our day and be confirmed, that would negate faith?! And then...
"More specifically, do we still need the foolishness of the cross?"
In politics, you can end discussion by calling your opponent a racist. In theology, you, you accuse them of error and bring up the cross in that same sentence...And more importantly, following that logic, we would have to reject apologetics altogether. After all, apologetics may the cross look less foolish! So then, Hal Lindsey, by expecting prophecies in the Bible (that he wrongly attributes to World War II in the next few decades) to come true and make God look good is negating the need for faith. Wow...
The biblical arguments are good at parts, built they weren't as good as I expected. For the first 1/3 of the book we hardly got any scripture at all; it was just a bunch of anti-dispensationalist rhetoric and complaints about how Christians just aren't behaving themselves by straying from the reformed confessions. Looking back, most of it was more about what is wrong with the books on Revelation today, an overview of how so many fall short of reading it how Vanderwaal says it is to be read. We get it - a lot of commentators think Babylon is Rome! I agree with Vanderwaal that it is Jerusalem and the book is primarily about A.D. 70, but it was a lot of polemic and rhetoric, some of it very over the top, and this overshadowed the moments where a good, biblical point was made.
It also had a lot of typographical errors. I didn't count but on a number of occasions, chapters and verses in "Exodus" is mentioned, even though what we are told is there is not there 9or even in the book of Exodus). If you were to look in those parts of Ezekiel, you would find it, so I think we know what happened there. That in itself isn't a big deal, but this book didn't have a lot of slack left to give...
There are better books out there on the topic.
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