I recently went back and reread this conversation and was surprised at some of the illogical arguments (and twist-out-of-context insults) I missed addressing the first time (as I had to refute so much around them).
Similarly, in rhetoric, there is a form of bad argument known as the motte-and-bailey. Someone puts forward an opinion that is controversial and not easily defended (the bailey). When he is challenged, he claims he was actually defending a much less controversial opinion (the motte). When his opponent gives up, he claims victory for the bailey argument.
No motte-and-bailey was used, you simply generalized my specific applicational use of those citations and then built your own strawmen to knock down and deceive everyone reading with extraneous fluff.
FACT: I used Irenaeus to defend the rapture of the church prior to the wrath of the Tribulation AGAINST the very common non-Dispen claim that Darby created the idea of the rapture in the 1800's along with Dispensationalism.
You then claimed I was using Irenaeus as a representative of Classical Dispensationalism
as a whole, when I in fact used him to defend the prior existence of the rapture AGAINST the contemporary non-Dispen notion that Darby made all of that up.
And note: the rapture is a doctrine almost exclusively found within Dispensationalism, but that does not make the rapture representative of OTHER doctrines in Dispensationalism.
You then blatantly lied, claiming Irenaeus did not hold to the rapture (the church being caught up before the Tribulation), to which I then had to requote the passage because that's literally what it says. Learn how to read.
For inasmuch as the former have rejected the Son of God, and cast Him out of the vineyard when they slew Him, God has justly rejected them, and given to the Gentiles outside the vineyard the fruits of its cultivation.
How on God's green earth did you interpret this as "allegorical" unity between national Israel and the church by continuity?
It is the literal opposite. Again, can you read? No, seriously, do you know how to read? It matches the Dispensational interpretation of Rom. 11 perfectly, but you used the sentence directly before it in an "allegorical" way to it to force-fit your covenant theology doctrine into the whole quote, thereby NULLIFYING
both Irenaeus' clear defense of the rapture (which you magically ignored, read it carefully, one word at a time) IN ADDITION to the sentence above: quite a feat. Are you a professional liar?
Now let's address that sentence prior, which was the only hope of your horrendous, eisegetical "allegory" position:
For the illustrious Church is [now] everywhere, and everywhere is the winepress dug: because those who do receive the Spirit are everywhere.
This immediately preceded the statement that then narrowed into clarified specifics of A DISTINCTION BETWEEN NATIONAL ISRAEL AND THE GENTILE WORLD.
Btw, read that one again. No seriously. Read. Don't deceive, read. Don't change what the plain text says to imagine Shakespeare into it: read first, overcomplicate later, and only if necessary.
Just because the Spirit is now everywhere and the Church is everywhere does not get rid of the following sentence that clarified this distinction between Israel and the Gentiles: "God has rejected them... given to the Gentiles". Romans 11, once the fullness of the Gentiles comes in (IT HASN'T COME IN YET), ALL ISRAEL WILL THEN BE SAVED (THEY AREN'T ALL SAVED YET). Nondispensationalists #1 problem is and will always be Romans 11 and their "allegorical unity" defiance against taking God at his word, at face value, plain and simple (the Dispensational hermeneutic).
NOW AUGUSTINE:
Augustine believed that the land promises were literally fulfilled by the time of Solomon:
Yeah, you know why? Because Augustine was an Amillennialist,
which is the Catholic position, which shares in the same allegorization and disdain of literal interpretation of scripture as you.
Again, you generalized my specific applicational use of a specific quote from Augustine that I used to defend the fact that he held specific Dispensational viewpoints into strawmanning me as using him as an example of all things Classical Dispensational. What kind of kindergarten argument is this, seriously? EVERYONE knows Augustine was an Amillennialist, so OBVIOUSLY I was not your strawman.
Rather, my citation of Augustine's writings on Dispensations
PROVE conclusively, beyond a shadow of a doubt (if you can read), that EVEN AUGUSTINE OF ALL PEOPLE knew God did things
differently in different "ages" compared to their successive "ages", which is the literal opposite concept of "unity" continuity and
sameness (different vs. same: do you understand these two concepts are antonyms and not synonyms?), so don't even try to steal the specific Dispensational concept I accurately drew from Augustine which supports the underlying notion of differences and administerial changes against your opposite sameness and unifying concepts: EVEN AUGUSTINE, AN AMILLENNIALIST LOVED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, knew about successive differences in God's administerial dealings with mankind in which what was right in one age God might change in another: a concept many contemporary protestant theologians ignore, demonstrating their hypocrisy:
many of them are more "unifying" and unwilling to recognize differences in scripture than even an Amillennialist like Augustine! This was my original point. Now do you get it?
and claims Augustine believed in Dispensationalism because he used the word "dispensation" and said God dealt with his people in different ways at different times (the motte). Well . . . duh. Every Christian believes in dispensations.
"Everyone believes in Dispensations, duh." Actually they don't, you're misrepresenting your own camp while attacking the positions of the very camp you're now masquerading as: Dispensationalism. Covenant theologians reject Dispensational ages in favor of covenants: there is no "Church Age of Grace" or 5-7 Dispensational Ages with covenant theologians, it's just "Old Covenant and New" to them, while Dispensationalists are the ones who incorporate BOTH Dispensational ages AND Covenants (ours is a more refined version of covenant theology: covenant theology is for Catholics and elementary school Protestants, it is pre-algebra whereas Dispensationalism is Calculus).
FINALLY to address this "Israel already got all the land" doctrine. This doctrine is highly unpopular, might wanna retreat to your Lord of the Rings Theoden hut because this is the REAL controversial and weak argument. I'm not going to even give you the luxury of laying it out for you: go back and read the literal land parameters that God promised to Israel.
