Chapter 1 of The Olive Tree – Towards a Messianic Christian Systematic Theology.
What is Messianic Theology. By Messianic Theology, I am referring to something greater than particular teaching on Jesus as the Messiah, though such teaching is central to it. This article seek to discuss Messianic Theology not as a set of particular doctrines but as a broad doctrinal framework through which the entirety of Scripture may be understood. This approach to theology is known as systematic theology.
What is Systemic Theology?
Systematic Theology is an attempt to integrate, weave together, or construct the various doctrines of the Bible into a logically and theologically coherent system. Systematic Theology uses the data that emerges from exegesis of the text and uses reason to make inferences concerning the big picture. Systematic Theology involves making inferences concerning which texts are more suitable for building a framework through which we can get a coherent picture. Systematic theology involves looking at the textual, linguistic and cultural context of passages; and comparing Scripture with Scripture to create a framework through which individual passages may be understood.
The benefits of systematic theology include gaining a world-view and meta-narrative perspective of the Bible that allows us to see a bigger picture – the bigger story. This allows us to be able to understand obscure and opaque passages by seeing them in light of the more clearly understood passages.
The potential downside toanysystematic theology is that it can create blindÂspots for eisegesis – reading into the text things that are not there. If a systematic theology has flaws concerning the nature of the text or the proper hermeneutics or methods of interpretation, then it will fail to provide an accurate big picture meta narrative.ÂOne notable downside here is that scholars are significantly more likely thantheaverage person to acquire cognitive biases related to errors in systematic theology.
Some Other Systematic Theologies
Before this book gets to its main point – exposing and promoting Messianic Theology, I want to engage in a brief analysis of other systematic theologies. This entails both a brief description of what they claim and downsides to these approaches to the Biblical text, downsides which include historical break points.  Historical break points are events that cannot happen, given the truth of a given systematic theology. As such, pointing out these as events that have actually happened as valuable in falsifying a given theological system.
There are four classes of alternatives to Messianic Theology.
Postmodernism denies that there exists objective truth and valid meta narratives. Movements based on Postmodernism, such as Post-Structuralism and Critical Theory, approach the texts of Scripture and other texts by asserting that language is not an adequate tool to communicate truth, but are merely tools to navigate power relationships and shape reality to conform to those in power.
Postmodernism literally eats itself to oblivion. The denial that absolute truth exists or the affirmation that no statements can be true is self-refuting. If the statement “there are no absolutes is true,” then that statement is itself an absolute. If the statement “no statements are true ” is true, then it is false.  The historical break pointfor Postmodernism and her children occurred at the beginning of human civilization and the advent of writing. If Postmodernism is true, then human language would never have become well-developed enough to build the constructs Postmodernism, Post-Structuralism, and Critical Theory.
Historical/Critical Systematic Theologies begins with the idea that the Bible is a mere human document that is a product of cultural and evolutionary forces. There are differing variants of this that range from atheistic to those who hold weakened versions of inspiration. None of these systems are compatible with full verbal plenary inspiration which holds that the original autographs or manuscripts were written to not only reflect the gist of God’s message but that they were worded exactly as God wanted them to be in language form familiar to the human authors. It is beyond the scope of this article to give a robust defense of full verbal plenary inspiration, but there are three arguments to briefly bring up here. These arguments, taken cumulatively, provide a historical breakpoint.
One is that the Bible has unique answers that line up with philosophically necessary answers. one example is that the Bible presupposes divine Conceptualism as the answer to the problem of universals. The problem of universals is about the best way to account for the seeming common reality of similar particulars. What accounts for the reality common to all barns. Platonism asserts the perfect material universal form barn in which all particular barns partake. Nominalism denies any common reality. Conceptualism asserts that the common reality exists as concepts in the mind.
In my book The Conceptual God I argue that Conceptualism is the only coherent answer to the problem of universals and Divine Conceptualism is the only coherent form of Conceptualism. We see Conceptualism in Gen 1, John 1:1, Psalm 33, and other passages. Almost all other religions begins with material substance than conceptually defined properties and relations.
Secondly, Jesus and the apostles held to full plenary inspiration of Scripture, and staked who they were upon this fact. If Jesus was wrong, then he is not who he claims to be. The apostles would not be Faithful witnesses but would be either Fools or Frauds.
Thirdly, there is a clear historical fingerprint of God setting apart a people, acting in their midst, and using them to change the world in counter-cultural ways. While the Bible has a cultural context, it is not merely a product of culture. This historical fingerprint included provenance of the sacred texts of Scripture and gospel It was the existence of this historical fingerprint which Irenaeus used in his book Against Heresies to debunk Gnosticism. In book 3 he used the Gnostic method of argumentation to show that the catholic (universal) church had God’s fingerprint of the work He did through Jesus Christ, complete with provenance and custody of the sacred texts. The Gnostics lost because they could not produce such a historical fingerprint to support their claims. (See Appendix B for a more detailed explanation). This counter-cultural movement of God in the history of His people provides numerous historical break points to both secular and Pagan interpretations of historical-critical approaches to systematic theology
Neither Postmodernism nor Historical-Critical approaches to theology have any concept of the Kingdom of God. In these systems the presence of God serves only to provide personal existential meaning or group identity.
Ecclesiastical Systematic TheologiesÂpresuppose that the Church is the ultimate source of revelation , and that it is the place of the Church to resolve difficulties. These would be the approaches of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. While these may hold to full verbal plenary inspiration, their view of Scripture became weakened by undue exaltation of the Church. There are several weaknesses of this approach.
One weakness is that making the church the infallible arbiter would shift the focus from the Church discovering God’s original intent to the Church deciding God’s original intent. Once one shifts away from “thus saith the Lord…” then the door is open to unauthorized innovation and even apostasy.
Secondly, making the Church such an arbiter meant that innovations.Tradition was not limited to Irenaeus’ conception of it as the provenance and custody of the sacred texts and understandings of the apostles message. Tradition would evolve to include all sorts of ideas that were completely foreign to the apostles as the Church added new doctrines by caprice. (See Appendix B for a more detailed explanation on why Irenaeus actually held to Sola Scriptura and how tradition was simply the chain of custody of the apostolic message.)
Thirdly, if the Church hierarchy or Magisterium is infallible, then correcting systemic errors becomes impossible. What happens if all of the popes and bishop succumb to error. This almost happened during the Arian controversy. Arianism almost won the day. At one point Athanasius was the only bishop who stood for the Trinity and briefly went into exile over this. He appealed to what we now call sola scriptura as his rock. Had he held to any of the Ecclesiastical Systematic Theologies of the Romans Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, then the Arians would have won the day. This event is a historical break point for Ecclesiastical Systematic Theologies.
Covenant Theology or Replacement Theology begins with the understanding that God relates to man in Covenants, and seeks to understand everything that happens Biblically within this framework. Covenant Theology regards the OT Covenants has historical to ancient Israel, but eternally existing allegorically in the Church. In particular, we are no longer bound to the Mosaic covenant because it is in place spiritually as an allegory rather than literally. Covenant Theology argues that the Church has replaced Israel and that all of the warnings and promises apply spiritually to the Church. In Classical Covenant Theology, historical Israel is no longer God’s people.
The big flaw in Covenant Theology is that it must assume allegorical interpretation as the default for much of Scripture, especially on the topic of eschatology or Israel. If we are to access the meaning of the text, literal interpretation must be the presumption, with allegorical methods employed only where the text itself gives us clues that a given passage is to be interpreted as an allegory of other figure of speech. If allegory is the default, then the text ceases to have authority over the interpreter; in these cases the text can have what meaning the interpreter gives to the allegory.
In Classical Covenant Theology, this allegorical method was practiced openly. Recently, various forms of Progressive Covenantalism have emerged with more nuanced form of allegorization. They would argue that theological covenants eternally exist – such as the Covenants of works, grace, etc; and that the church has always existed as partakers of these theological Covenants. In stead of replacing Israel at a point in history, the Church has always been Israel.  Theological Covenants, however, are never literally affirmed by Scripture but require defaulting to allegorical methods of interpretation to affirm. This author denies the existence of allegorical Theological Covenants, and confines the treatment of covenants to the historical covenants affirmed through a grammatical-historical reading of Scripture.
The historical break point for Covenant Theology is the re-establishment of the modern state of Israel in the manner that literally fulfills Bible prophecies. The OT prophecies predicted that they would return despite their unbelief, followed by the Day of God’s Wrath, and then would repent and be reconciled to God.
Both Ecclesiastical Systematic Theologies and Covenant Theology equate the Church with the Kingdom of God.
Dispensationalismfocuses on the fact that there seem to be dispensations of time where God acts differently towards his people. In particular, it is an explanation on why we do not observe the law of Moses. Dispensationalism argues that the Church and Israel are wholly separate expressions of God’s people who have parallel histories that never meet. While Dispensationalists interpret Scripture literally, they will often divide up the Scripture in ways that make the Church and Israel mutually exclusive. If a passage applies to Israel, then it cannot be about the Church and vice versa. The teaching of the pre-tribulational rapture of the Church, which is explicitly stated nowhere in Scripture – deductively follows from Dispensationalism.
The core claim of Classical Dispensationalism, the argument that the Church and Israel are wholly separate, is falsified by numerous Scriptures. Passages such as Eph 2:12-20, Romans 11, and Revelation 21:9-14 present the Church and Israel side by side – distinct yet intimately connected to each other. Classical Dispensationalism has two historical break points: The first is found in the Apostolic Age, where the Church and Israel stood side by side. The Second one will be crossed when the Church faces the reign of terror of the Antichrist after the pre-trib rapture fails to happen.
One last note on Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism. The Classical formulations are easily shown to be false through their various historical breakpoints – so much so that progressive wings have formed in both systems to deal with the glaring problems. Progressive Covenantalism has room for a future national Israel, and Progressive Dispensationalism has softened its hard separation of the Church and Israel to allow both to part of one plan rather than positing two plans of God. While Messianic Christianity presented here fits neither of these, the progressive wings are closer theologically than the Classical Formulations. Lets us go to the framework of Messianic Christian Systematics.
The Framework of Messianic Theology
Messianic Theology has as its core principle the doctrine of the Messiah. The OT Saints looked forward to the Messiah. New Testament believers looked both forward and backward, looking backward to the Cross and forward to the Second Coming. The Messiah fulfills all of the Covenants and every dispensation.
All of God’s covenants with man are fulfilled in the Messiah. The Messiah is the Seed of the Woman, The Ark of Baptism, The Son of Abraham, The Prophet Like Unto Moses, and the Son of David.