CHRIS ROSEBROUGH''S STAGGERING SELF-CONTRADICTIONS! EZEKIEL 37-38

(54) F4F | A Biblical Perspective on Israel and Prophecy - YouTube

Chris Rosebrough's staggering self-contradictions! 

In the above video, Lutheran teacher and broadcaster Chris Rosebrough gives his take on Ezekiel 37-38 and Israel in bible prophecy. Rosebrough often asks what false teachers are talking about.. but we might ask him the same question.

Rosebrough (2023): "Ezekiel 37 is not a prophecy of the restoration of the nation-state of Israel.. This is a prophecy regarding the resurrection of the dead, not a resurrection of the nation-state of Israel in 1948. It is a misappropriation of the text to make it be anything other than that." (1:17 mark)

Rosebrough (2013): "The immediate fulfillment of this prophecy was not that the exiles were raised from the dead, but that the house of Israel was raised from the dead and brought out of exile into the land of Israel and was reestablished as a nation. ..This text is really a prophecy about God resurrecting the dead nation of Israel that ceased to exist as a nation because they were now in exile. That's what this is about. If you make it about something else.. then you are missing the whole point of the text.. (See note) (56) Louie Giglio Twists Ezekiel 37 at Passion 2013 - YouTube (11:00 mark)

Note: I have assumed that Rosebrough was not referring to 538 BC when the Jews in Babylon were allowed to return to the land of Judah due to Cyrus' decree. (Ezra 2:1-2). If this is what he was referring to then it is ill-founded. Ezekiel 37 identifies the land of Israel as a whole i.e. Judah and Ephraim (Ezekiel 37:15-29). Judah became the Persian province of Yehud Medinata following the return from Babylonian captivity. The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (Hebrew: הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948. 

Rosebrough describes Jesus' stinging condemnation of the Oral Torah/Law as taught by the Pharisees from approximately 200 BC. The Oral Torah is given predominance by rabbinic Orthodox Jews of today making them guilty of adding to the statutes and ordinances given to Moses on Mount Sinai. (Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:6; Matthew 23:1-36). 

Rosebrough observed that the modern state of Israel is in rank rebellion and idolatry, and he drew attention to the Buddha statue at the "Supernova Sukkot Gathering", the site of the Hamas massacre on the 7th of October. The "Supernova Sukkot Gathering" is the open-air psychedelic trance music festival celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot near the Re'im kibbutz. Videos show the chilling spectacle of young Israelis dancing to trance music under a giant Buddha statue and prayer flags. 1 

Rosebrough makes a distinction between the genetic descendants of Abraham and those who have the same faith as Abraham, i.e. Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus Christ. (52:00 mark). He quotes from Romans 9: For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.. (Romans 9:6-8 cf. Galatians 3:27-29).

Rosebrough: "The genetic people of Israel who do not believe, who do not worship according to scripture and deny Jesus as the Messiah - they are not part of true Israel - at all. They may be genetically related to Israel, but true Israel are those who have the same faith as Abraham, the Yahwehists, not the Pharisaical Jews or the Hasidic Jews.."  (59:00 mark)  

Rosebrough acknowledges that true Israel was founded upon the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he says that he rejects replacement theology (supersessionism). Nevertheless, he fails to acknowledge specific future promises concerning ethnic Israel ~ as such, he is a supersessionist by definition. Supersessionist theology is the belief that God does not have specific plans for the nation of Israel and that Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus Christ have replaced ethnic Israel as the people of God.

Below are various promises given to ethnic Israel.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25).  

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! ..I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:11-12, 25-29 cf. Isaiah 59:20).  

"And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 59:20).

By "all Israel" Paul is referring to one-third of the Jewish people who will cry out to God in repentance during the great tribulation, the time known as "Jacobs Trouble" following the midpoint of the 70th week of Daniel. (Matthew 24:21). Although they are in unbelief at the present time, a remnant of ethnic Jews will be grafted back into their own olive tree. (Romans 11:24). 

I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. And to you and your descendants I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as an eternal possession; and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:7-8).

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:1-4 cf. Isaiah 11:59-62;  ).

Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of hosts is his name: “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” Thus says the LORD: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 31:35-37).

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10).

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (Joel 2:30-31).

..Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” (Ezekiel 37:21-28).

In my view, Ezekiel 38 is the eschatological battle at the end of the millennium cross-referenced in Revelation 20. The reason I hold this view is that Ezekiel 38 describes Israel dwelling securely. Many pre-tribulation rapture speculators claim that the Gog/Magog battle will happen in the near future. However, since it is highly unlikely that Israel will be at peace prior to the return of Jesus Christ this view is implausible. 

This is what the Lord GOD says: On that day, thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will devise an evil plan. You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will come against a tranquil people who dwell securely, all of them living without walls or bars or gates— in order to seize the spoil and carry off the plunder, to turn a hand against the desolate places now inhabited and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and possessions and who live at the center of the land.’ (Ezekiel 38:10-12).

When the thousand years are complete, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore. And they marched across the broad expanse of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. (Revelation 20:7-10).

This is an appropriate time to point out that Lutheran theology is amillennial. 2 Problematically Lutheran theology is based on a non-literal interpretation of Revelation 20:1-7 regarding a literal thousand-year period following the second coming of Jesus Christ. The amillennial position views the millennium as “realized” i.e. the 1,000 years allegedly occurs during the church age. Amillennialists believe that the second advent of Jesus Christ will be followed by the last judgement and the eternal state. The amillennial view was established in the 5th century by Augustine of Hippo, and was the primary view of most of the reformers in the 16th century. It should be noted that the dominant view of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, including Irenaeus, Papias, Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Hippolytus was historic premillennialism. Historic premillennialism (known in the early church as chiliasm) is the literal futuristic view that the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur prior to the thousand-year reign subsequent to the great apostasy. 

A critical concern about Lutheran doctrine that has major implications regarding salvation by grace through faith is their belief in baptismal regeneration which is an unbiblical throwback to Roman Catholicism. (Ephesians 2:8). It was a very bad day when Chris Rosebrough became a Lutheran. False doctrines inevitably come back to bite us! They are even more egregious when they are propagated by those who claim to be "watchmen" who call out false teachers in the church! (Matthew 7:5).

1. Re'im music festival massacre - Wikipedia
2. The Augsburg Confession - Evangelical Lutheran Synod (els.org)

Further Links:

(68) About Replacement Theology: Romans 11:25-32 - YouTube

(66) Premillennialism Answering Amillennialism - Dr. Alan Kurschner - YouTube