Many Dispensationalists believe that when the Great Tribulation begins, millions of Jews in the world will suffer terrible chastisement for crucifying Christ. But you can't find that anywhere in the Bible. This was a crime which a long gone generation of Jews committed 2000 years ago. Nevertheless, Bible experts, revealing that what they know they learned from mentors and not from the Bible, all point an accusing finger at the Jews.

Hal Lindsay: "And the spared remnant of the dispersed of Israel will, like their brethren in Jerusalem, hail Him - though at first, it may be, from a distance - whom they crucified..." (The Road To Holocaust, p 183)

John MacArthur: "I believe that what we're seeing today is just a preliminary regathering for the Tribulation, not the final regathering for their redemption and entrance into the Kingdom. They're coming back now to be killed...to be punished." (The Second Coming of The Lord Jesus Christ, p 115)

J. Vernon McGee: "He has been pierced! That part has been fulfilled. But Zachariah says that He shall return again, and when He comes, then they will look upon the One whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him." (Thru The Bible, vol 4, p 493)

Dwight Pentecost: "The first great purpose of the Tribulation is to prepare the nation Israel for her Messiah...the tribulation is primarily Jewish...God's purpose for Israel in the Tribulation is to bring about the conversion of a multitude of Jews..." (Things To Come, p 237)

Is Tribulation of any kind an effective way of bringing about conversion? Hitler's holocaust was probably the worst since A.D.70. But how many Jews were converted to Christianity at that time?

John F. Walvoord: "Though the Gentiles performed the act of crucifixion, it was demanded by the Jews who, according to Scripture, 'pierced' Christ. Jews living at the time of the Second Coming will accept responsibility." (Every Prophecy of the Bible p 524)

Dr. John R. Rice: "...the trouble in Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the Jews among all the nations of Jerusalem [sic?] throughout this whole age, is simply a continuation of the punishment of God upon the whole race of Jews." (Matthew, p 369)

These are very strong condemnations of the Jew. It appears that a number of Bible experts have taken it upon themselves to speak for the Lord of heaven, because He certainly is not holding any Jew guilty - or anyone else for that matter - for crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ (we are all guilty, of course. It was our guilt that sent Christ to the cross. But I'm speaking of those who had a direct hand in delivering the Lord Jesus Christ to the Romans for crucifixion 2000 years ago). As a matter of fact, I know of no instance in the Bible where God punished anyone for crucifying Christ. For some 40 years after the unbelieving Jews committed this awful crime, God did everything He could to bring them all to repentance and back to Himself. The Gospel went out to every creature under heaven, Jew and Gentile alike, but always to the Jew first. Those who repented and accepted Christ as their Saviour were saved, even though they might have been among those Jews who cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Only those who resisted and rejected Christ to the very end (to the war of A.D.70) were destroyed.

Is God more vindictive than man? If Johnny Smith's Great-Great-Grandpa committed murder way back in his day, and the law arrested Johnny last month for the crime, and sentenced him to the chair, or life in prison, would we not think it criminally unfair of our Justice System? Yet we Christians, without even stopping to search the Scriptures to see if this is so, believe some teachers, and expect the Almighty God to do awful things to a randomly selected generation of Jews in a "Great Tribulation" in retribution for crucifying Christ.

Notice, however, that the scholars teach us Gentiles to rejoice that WE don't have to suffer through the Great Tribulation with the Jews. They happily point us to I Thessalonians 5:9 which says, "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." So we are supposed to believe that we go up in the rapture, and the Antichrist is turned loose, primarily to chastise some far off generation of Jews who never saw Christ, never heard Him teach, never saw Him do any miracles in their city and country, and were not the ones who persuaded the Romans to do the actual crucifying.

This is contrary to Scripture. The biblical story isn't quite like that at all. Although (and this is from the Christian viewpoint) unbelieving Jews have no particular reason to rejoice (if they die in unbelief, they will suffer the same fate as unbelieving Gentiles), the truth is that God is not out to get even with them for what their ancestors did.

God expressly says that, "...the soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezek. 18:4) "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (Ezek. 18:20). This is pure and simple Bible - it might well have been written in stone; we cannot change it, and we shouldn't ignore it. It wasn't written especially for Jews, nor does it exclude Jews.

It is obvious that the Bible scholars who anticipate a "Great Tribulation" especially to chastise Jews for crucifying Christ either have not read the above verses in the Old Testament, or else they don't believe them.

Nor did they read the words of Jesus Christ who singled out a particularly wicked group of Jews as He pronounced all the woes upon the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:13-35), and then said, "Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation." Some Bible scholars, often ignoring the context, have the uncanny ability to interpret phrases like "this generation" to mean something other than that which is normal. But in this verse it is obvious that "this generation" was the actual generation that Jesus was speaking to.

SOME BELIEVE THAT ISRAEL IS A BLINDED NATION
None of that generation of Jews the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking to were judged for crucifying Christ, only for unblief. And not all of that generation were judged for unbelief. Paul made it clear that there was a saved remnant of Israelites (Rom. 11:5). They were the "elect" because they accepted the Gospel which had then been preached to all the Jews in the world (Col. 1:23). But the rest of Israel was blinded (Rom. 11:7). So Paul divided Israel into two segments; those who were blinded, and those who were not.

What happened to the blinded of Israel? "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth..." (II Thes. 2:12). That is pretty strong language. If an Israelite was blinded after stubbornly rejecting Christ to the end, he had no chance of escape. The Romans would soon get him. But that happend some 2000 years ago. And it happened only to the guilty and blinded generation of Jews.

Dispensational scholars believe that Israel is a blinded nation now, and will remain blinded until the Church is raptured, once again teaching a fallacy which is contrary to Scripture. II Thes. 2:10-12 gives a different story. It says that only the part of Israel which loved not the truth was blinded that they all might be damned. They were "them that perish" (v 10).

Dispensationalists, true to their calling, move II Thessalonians out into the far off future, past the Church Age, and into the future "Great Tribulation," so that the "falling away" becomes the future "apostate church," the "man of sin" becomes the future "Antichrist," and so on.

In the first place, there is no such thing as an apostate church. According to the best dictionaries, an apostate is he who once believed, but abandons his faith, and becomes unfaithful. But according to the doctrine of the security of the believer today, that is not possible. So a church is made up either of believers, or of unbelievers. A church of unbelievers doesn't go into unbelief; it's already in unbelief. Although unbelievers may come into a church of believers, even in predominant numbers, so that the church becomes a church of unbelievers, it has not gone apostate; it simply becomes a church full of unbelievers.

According to the doctrine of the security of the believer, no one today can fall away, although that was not always the case. There was a time in Jewish history when a Jew could fall away from the faith, and be lost forever. "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62)

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance..." (Heb. 6:4-6).

It is a sad and pathetic thing to see Bible experts strain at these verses in an effort to interpret them in terms of Futurism and the believers' security of today. The falling away in II Thessalonians concerned the Jews who lived during the final days of Israel and the Mosaic system, prior to the war of A.D.70. During those years a Jew who accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ was in a precarious position. He had to endure many temptations by false prophets and teachers which would lure him away from Jesus Christ and back into the Old Ways. If he gave in, he was lost and could not come back. But if he endured to the end, he would be saved. "But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved" (Matt. 24:13).

Oddly enough, the doctrine of the security of the believer helps us determine that the book of Revelation was written prior to the war of A.D.70, and not after: "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before the angels" (Rev. 3:5). We learn here never to underestimate the shrewdness of a futuristic Bible expert in making a verse of Scripture say what's in the expert's heart by changing or ignoring a word here and there. In the King James Bible Commentary we read this concerning Revelation 3:5, "The promise not to blot out his name out of the book of life is strong assurance of the eternal security of the believer in Sardis." The scholar reverses the meaning of the verse, and neglects to tell us that this promise applies only to "him that overcometh." There are seven clear promises of salvation made to the seven churches in Asia, and in all cases the promise is made to those who manage to overcome.

The standard scholarly explanation of the word "overcome" is that "if you believe in Christ, then you are an overcomer." This explains little; it is a general statement of fact - a truism, if you will. To repeat it seven times to each church which was made up of people who already believed in Christ (and thus were overcomers, according to Dispensationalism) seems quite redundant. These were not simple factual statements of salvation, but admonitions to DO something. If one endured, his salvation was assured. But the converse is obvious; if he didn't endure, he was in danger of losing his salvation - i.e., his name would be blotted out of the book of life, etcetera. These Jewish believers were required to overcome, and endure in their faithfulness to Christ until the end of the nation f Israel in A.D.70. Those were perilous times for the children of Israel.

But that particular peril ended with the war in A.D.70, 2000 years ago. The generation of Jews guilty of stubborn unbelief and a hatred of Christ were destroyed in that holocaust. The surviving Jews, those who believed in Christ, became the new Church of Jesus Christ which carried the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

No Jew today is guilty of crucifying Christ. No Jew has been guilty since A.D.70. Also, no Jew is blinded today. God says that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. If God is true, then how can any Jew, after so many generations, still be blamed for crucifying Christ? In A.D.70, when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, when the day of Israel ended, the times of the Gentiles, or the fulness of the Gentiles, came in. That was the time in history Paul was referring to when he said that part of Israel would be "blinded until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Rom. 11:25). With Israel gone, we are living in the times of the Gentiles.

Scripturally speaking, there is no Israel, and there are no Jews. All Jews have become the same as Gentiles (Rom. 11:32). Today, from the point of view of biblical Christianity, there are only Christians and Gentiles.

There is a damnable belief prevailing among many Christian organizations today that no one ought to witness Christ to Jews, that they are saved through their own covenant with God, that they have no need of Christ for salvation. Part of this belief may stem from confused, futuristic theology, which has been taught for the past two hundred years or more, and part may be a mysterious, deep-rooted hatred of Jews. Blaming Jews for crucifying Christ is merely an excuse for persecuting them, no matter what form it takes. The Jew today is the same as a Gentile, and while the Gospel of Christ should not be forced upon anyone, if he will listen, neither should it be withheld.

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