By Thomas Williamson
3131 S. Archer Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60608
It appears to me that there is some confusion with regard
to the current teaching on the place of the nation of Iran in
Bible prophecy. Please read this letter that I sent on March 17,
2007 to Dr. Edward Hindson, Contributing Editor, National Liberty
Journal in Lynchburg, Virginia. As of July, 2007, I have not yet
received a reply.
"I have a few brief questions and comments concerning your
article "Is War With Iran Inevitable?" in the March,
2007 National Liberty Journal.
"Your article, in common with all dispensationalist prophetic
interpretations of Ezekiel 38-39 that I am aware of, sees a future
Russian-Iranian invasion of Israel as taking place in close conjunction
with the Rapture. This being the case, why is it that various
televangelists including Jerry Falwell and John Hagee are lobbying
for an American military strike against Iran?
"It seems to me that such an attack, if successful, would
destroy Iran's ability to attack Israel for decades or even centuries
to come, thus putting the Rapture on hold for decades or centuries.
There seems to be a tension or conflict between the belief that
Christ will come very soon in conjunction with a Russian/Iranian
attack on Israel, and the belief that it is our duty as Christian
Americans to attack and destroy Iran. I was hoping that your article
would help resolve this contradiction, but it did not do so.
"My second question is, how can belief that Ezekiel 38-39
predicts a future military invasion of Israel be reconciled with
the literal if possible' principle of Bible interpretation.
Any literal interpretation of Ezekiel 38-39 would inevitably lead
to the conclusion that Ezekiel is describing a battle that took
place in ancient times, with all the invaders riding on horses
(38:15), fighting with bucklers, shields and swords (38:4), with
shields and helmets (38:5), with shields, bucklers, bows and arrows
handstaves and spears (39:9).
"No armies in the modern world fight with these weapons
today or would dare to attack any modern nation such as Israel
with such weapons. And why would the modern nation of Israel scavenge
these weapons to be used as fuel (39:9-10)? It seems to me that
by transferring this ancient battle to future times, we have abandoned
the literal principle of interpretation."
Since I did not receive a response from Dr. Hindson, I am reprinting
this letter in the hope that some of my readers can respond and
explain why it is our Christian duty to attack and destroy Iran,
before that nation has had a chance to fulfill "Bible prophecy"
by attacking Israel.
It just seems to me that if the big-name prophecy teachers are
going to make a big issue over their trendy teachings on the place
of Iran in Bible prophecy, making these things a test of faith
among Christians, and lobbying our government to base its foreign
policy on these prophecy teachings, then first they need to get
their act together and come up with stories that do not conflict.
If it is our duty to nuke Iran and wipe out the Iranians in order
to fulfill "Bible prophecy," then we should stop teaching
that Iran will be invading Israel as a part of the events leading
up to Christ's second coming.
If it is necessary for the Iranians to attack Israel in order
for "Bible prophecy" to be fulfilled and for Christ
to return, then we should stop lobbying our government to nuke
and destroy Iran. Come on guys, get your story straight before
you drag America into another disastrous, unwinnable war in the
Middle East based on fanciful, contradictory notions of fulfilling
"Bible prophecy."
The reason I keep putting "Bible prophecy" in quotes
is because I do not believe that the Bible predicts either of
these events. The Bible does not teach that it is necessary for
America to attack and destroy Iran, nor does the Bible teach that
Iran, with or without the Russkies, will attack Israel at a time
future to us.
Read Ezekiel 38-39 for yourself. Please note what is absent from
this passage. There is absolutely no mention of America or any
other nation carrying out an attack on Iran.
There is nothing in this passage that mentions the Rapture or
Second Coming of Christ, or that in any way ties this invasion
of Israel with the time of Christ's return.
There is nothing here that pinpoints these events as taking place
in the early 21st Century AD, or in modern times at all.
To spiritualize the descriptions of battle with ancient weapons
and modes of transportation in Ezekiel 38-39, making them refer
to modern weapons and battle tactics, is to repudiate the literal
method of interpretation that is supposedly the main strength
and bulwark of dispensational Bible prophecy.
Dispensationalists are fond of saying "We are the only ones
who interpret the Bible literally so that makes us right and everyone
else is wrong." However, whenever they run into anything
in the Bible that does not fit their preconceived theological
system, they spiritualize it and make it non-literal. The stars
of heaven in Revelation 6:13 are changed to meteors, the locusts
of Revelation 9:3 become Cobra helicopters, the 490 years of Daniel
9:24-27 are put on a stretching machine and made to be more than
2500 years, and so on and so forth ad infinitum and ad nauseum.
Creative new interpretations of Bible prophecy are manufactured
in order to conform to the latest politically correct fads. When
I became a Christian in 1971, no one was teaching that it was
necessary to attack Iran to fulfill Bible prophecy. All of the
sudden, by an amazing coincidence, just about the same time that
a Republican President declared Iran to be part of the "Axis
of Evil," certain sensationalistic televangelists discovered
a truth that had been missed by all the great preachers and expositors
of the last 2000 years, that the Bible teaches that America must
attack Iran to fulfill Bible prophecy. We need to exercise some
healthy skepticism whenever someone comes up with a brand-new
tenet of doctrine that was never heard of until the early 21st
Century
I realize that I may be branded a traitor, infidel and cheese-eating
surrender monkey for what I am about to say. But I am not going
to endorse the proposed attack on Iran, in the name of Christianity,
until someone can show me where this is prophesied in the Bible,
and where it says that it is our duty to make it happen.
Even if it can be shown that the Bible prophesies that America
will attack Iran some day, it does not necessarily follow that
we under an obligation to make it happen. The Old Testament prophesied
that the Messiah would be crucified, but that did not mean that
it was the duty of the 12 apostles to crucify Christ or lobby
the Roman government to crucify Him. Christ predicted that Jerusalem
would be destroyed by the Romans within one generation (fulfilled
in 70 AD) but He did not teach that His followers should lobby
their emperor, senators or centurions to send the Roman army to
conduct a "pre-emptive first strike" on Jerusalem.