Hank Hanegraaff’s
"The Apocalypse Code"
"
By Thomas Ice
Executive Director
Pre-Trib Research Center, Arlington,TX
"Hanegraaff
meekly declares of the release of his new book: 'I think it will create a major
paradigm shift in our understanding of the end times that is long overdue.' He
believes it will be away from dispensational futurism and toward his
Preterism/idealism scheme."
For the last fifteen years or so
when I have heard Hank
Hanegraaff, host of the Bible Answer Man radio program, field
questions on eschatology (end times prophecy) it was very clear that he has
been against the futurist perspective from the get-go. Hanegraaff has told his
audience for years that he was studying the field of eschatology and would
announce his views in a book one day. Hanegraaff's book has now been released,
entitled The Apocalypse Code[1] and has
confirmed his rhetoric and tone heard for the last fifteen years on the radio
as Hanegraaff has been treating Dispensationalism as if it were a cult. Yes,
Hanegraaff has been "culting" Dispensationalism! Even though
Hanegraaff always insisted that he was open to and had not adopted a specific
view of eschatology, it has always been equally clear to anyone who is schooled in the various views that he had all along
rejected Dispensationalism and embraced his own version of a Preterist/idealist
scheme. Yet, he has never admitted this; and even after the release of his book
still refuses to classify his own conclusions in spite of the fact that he assigns
labels to virtually everyone else.
Some Factual Errors
As I first started reading the book,
I noticed a number of factual errors. Let me chronicle just a couple of them.
Hanegraaff says Tim LaHaye is "Unlike early dispensationalists, who
believed that the Jews would be regathered in Palestine because of belief in
their Redeemer."[2] Hanegraaff
gives no documentation for this statement, which is factually in error. In
fact, J. N. Darby (the earliest of dispensationalists) believed that the Jews
would return to their land in unbelief. He says, "At the end of the age
the same fact will be reproduced: the Jews-returned to their own land, though
without being converted-will find themselves in connection with the fourth
beast."[3] Historian
David Rausch in his Ph.D. dissertation entitled: Zionism Within
Early American Fundamentalism 1878-1918, says, "The
Proto-Fundamentalist believed that the Jewish people would return to Palestine,
the 'Promised Land,' without converting enmasse to Christianity."[4] More examples could be given, but it is clear that most dispensationalists
have always agreed with LaHaye on this matter.
Another error in fact by Hanegraaff
is his statement that Author James Balfour "was raised on a steady diet of
Dispensationalism."[5] Lord Balfour
was foreign secretary when the British government issues a statement in 1917
supporting the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Israel called the Balfour
Declaration. Balfour was a Zionist, but his views were not
based upon eschatology, let alone Dispensationalism. His sister and
biographer said the following:
Balfour's interest in the Jews and
their history was lifelong. It originated in the Old
Testament training of his mother, and in his Scottish upbringing. As he grew
up, his intellectual admiration and sympathy for certain, aspects of Jewish
philosophy and culture grew also, and the problem of the Jews in the modern
world seemed to him of immense importance. He always talked eagerly on this,
and I remember in childhood imbibing from him the idea that Christian religion
and civilization owes to Judaism an immeasurable debt, shamefully ill repaid.[6]
Historian Barbara Tuckman tells us
that Balfour was "not ardent but a skeptic, not a religious enthusiast but
a philosophical pessimist, . . . that Christian
religion and civilization owes to Judaism an immeasurable debt, shamefully ill
repaid."[7] Hardly one
influenced by Dispensationalism as Hanegraaff would have his readers believe.
In fact, it is probably true that none of the Christian Zionists of the early
twentieth century in Britain were influenced at all by
Dispensationalism. Most of the Christian Zionists in Britain at this time were
usually members of the Church of England.[8]
Humble Hank
Humble Hank Hanegraaff ridicules Hal
Lindsey's 1997 book, Apocalypse Code[9] as one who
claimed to understand the book of Revelation. "Until the present
generation," declares Hanegraaff of Lindsey, "the encrypted message
of the Apocalypse had remained unrealized" until Lindsey cracked the code.[10] Now Hanegraaff
meekly declares of the release of his new book: "I think it will create a
major paradigm shift in our understanding of the end times that is long
overdue."[11]
He believes it will be away from dispensational futurism and toward his
Preterism/idealism scheme.
Hanegraaff contends that his book is
about "Exegetical Eschatology to underscore that above all else I am
deeply committed to a proper method of biblical interpretation rather
than to any particular model of eschatology."[12]
If that is his goal then he has fallen far short of the mark! Hanegraaff's
proposed interpretative approaches, if implemented, would send the church back
to the Dark Ages hermeneutically. He may want to produce only a method of
interpretation, but the moment anyone applies a method it produces an outcome
or model of eschatology. Further, the book of Revelation is
not written in code (where does Revelation say that?), thus, no need to
break the code as Hanegraaff contends.
The great majority of the book is a
rant against Hanegraaff's distorted view of Dispensationalism in general and
Tim LaHaye in particular. There is precious little actual exegesis, if any at
all, to support his Preterist/idealist eschatology,
however, there are great quantities of some of the most vicious tirades against
LaHaye and many other Bible prophecy teachers that I have ever read in print.
Hanegraaff appears rather proud to
tell readers that the principles of his methodology is "called
Exegetical Eschatology or e2,"[13]
as if no one before he came along had ever produced a view of eschatology from
proper exegesis. Interestingly, for someone who claims such a deep commitment
"to a proper method of biblical interpretation"[14]
it is stunning to realize that Hanegraaff's "method" is stated as
principles, rather than an actual method like the historical-grammatical.
"I have organized the
principles that are foundational to e2 around the acronym
LIGHTS,"[15]
says Hanegraaff. The letters of the acronym LIGHTS stands for the following
principles: L refers to the literal principle, I represent the illumination
principle, G stands for the grammatical principle, H for the historical
principle, T means the typology principle, and S is for the principle of
scriptural synergy.[16]
Only half of Hanegraaff's principles can even be classified
as interpretative methods, the other three are best classified as theological
beliefs.
Illumination is a work of the Holy
Spirit on the believer that enables him to see or understand God's Word. An
unbeliever is blinded to the truth of God (1 Cor.
2:14), however, a believer is in a state in which he is able to see and
understand God's truth (1 Cor. 2:9-3:2). This theological truth is not an
interpretative method. Typology is not a method for exegeting Scripture, instead,
as Paul says, some Old Testament events were types, patterns, illustrations, or
examples to help us live the Christian life (1 Cor. 10:6, 11). Hanegraaff
defines his principle of scriptural synergy as a belief "that the whole of
Scripture is greater than the sum of its individual passages. . . . that individual Bible passages may never be interpreted in
such a way as to conflict with the whole of Scripture."[17] Traditionally
this is called the analogy of faith, that Scripture interprets Scripture. This
also is a theological outcome and not a method. This principle also presupposes
that one already properly understands the meaning of all of the other passages
that are supposed to shed light upon the one in dispute. Such is not the case.
Tim
LaHaye Racist and Blasphemer?
Hanegraaff's new book anoints Tim
LaHaye as the head of this new cult, replacing Hal Lindsey the former whipping
boy, and is the prime target in his sub-Christian attack on LaHaye and other
Bible prophecy advocates. Strangely, Hanegraaff is known
for often quoting the famous maxim: "In essentials, unity; in
nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity."[18]
So where is the liberty and charity in practice that he advocates in theory?
Charity and liberty towards those he disagrees with is totally absent in
Hanegraaff's new book. In fact, his new book actually competes with the
writings of Gary
North for the most invective per paragraph and makes Gary
DeMar appear to be a fairly nice guy. It is
one thing to disagree with another Christian (Hanegraaff and any other
Christian has a right to voice their disagreement with other Christians), but
to call his fellow brother in Christ a racist[19]
and a blasphemer[20]
because he advocates a different view of Bible prophecy goes well beyond the
pale.
"Furthermore," says
Hanegraaff, "there is the very real problem of racial discrimination."[21]
Watch how Hanegraaff plays the race card: he takes LaHaye's commonly held view
that Israel has a future in God's plan, adds a touch of his famous
misrepresentation of another's view, and presto, LaHaye has become a racist. It
would seem to me that the same Hanegraaff logic applied to God in the Old
Testament would also make the Lord a racist for choosing Israel "out of
all the peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deut. 6:6-8). It
follows that if you side with God on this issue then Hanegraaff would believe
that you believe in salvation by race instead of grace. Yes, LaHaye believes
that God has chosen Israel, but like all dispensationalists, he also believes
that Israel will be saved in the future by the same
gracious gospel that is available to all mankind-Jew or Gentile.
Anti-Israel and Pro-Palestinian
Hanegraaff's blend of Preterism and
idealism produces an eschatology that is viciously anti-Israel and
pro-Palestinian. His brand of replacement theology teaches that national Israel
has no future since she is replaced by the church.
Just as Joshua is a type of Jesus
who leads the true children of Israel into the eternal land of promise, so King
David is a type of the "King of Kings and Lord or Lords" who forever
rules and reigns from the New Jerusalem in faithfulness and in truth
(Revelation 19:16; cf. 19:11). In each case, the lesser is
fulfilled and rendered obsolete by the greater.[22]
As is typical within systems of replacement theology, Hanegraaff renders much of the Old Testament obsolete by what is said to have happened in New Testament theology. He says, the "relationship between the Testaments is in essence typological."[23] Future prophetic promises, which usually relate to Israel, are rendered as mythical or mere types and shadows of something else, but never what they actually say. Through alleged hermeneutical ideas, such as Hanegraaff's so-called, "typology principle," he interprets future promises to Israel allegorically as fulfilled through the church. Such deconstruction of God's Word renders the future promises to Israel as mythological and not true historical records of God's veracity.[24] Thus, the reader is not surprised that Hanegraaff does not believe that the seventy weeks of years (490 years) in Daniel refer to literal years that actually elapse in specific history, instead, he says, "the seventy sevens of Daniel encompass ten Jubilee eras and represent the extended exile of the Jews that would end in the fullness of time-the quintessential Jubilee-when the people of God would experience ultimate redemption and restoration, not in the harlot city, but in the holy Christ."[25]
Hanegraaff regularly calls Jerusalem "the harlot city."
[1]
Hank Hanegraaff, The
Apocalypse Code: Find Out What the Bible Really Says About
The End Times and Why It Matters Today (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
2007), 300 pages.
[2] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse Code, p. xxii.
[3] John Nelson Darby, The
Hopes of the Church of God, in Connection with the Destiny of the Jews and the
Nations as Revealed in Prophecy (1840), Collected Writings, (Winschoten,
Netherlands: H. L. Heijkoop, reprint 1971), vol. 2, p. 324.
[4] David A. Rausch, Zionism
Within Early American Fundamentalism 1878-1918: A
Convergence of Two Traditions (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), p.
64.
[5] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 183.
[6] Blanche E. C.
Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour: First Earl of Balfour, 1848-1906 (New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1937), p. 324.
[7] Barbara W. Tuchman,
Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (New
York: Ballatine Press, 1956), p. 311.
[8] For an overview of
the history of Christian Zionism see Thomas Ice, "Lovers of Zion: A
History of Christian Zionism" at the following internet site:
http://www.pre-trib.org/article-view.php?id=295.
[9] Hal Lindsey, Apocalypse
Code (Palos Verdes, CA: Western Front, 1997).
[10] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse Code, pp. xv- xvi.
[11] Hank Hanegraaff,
www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976960023.
[12] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 2.
[13] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse Code, p. xxvii.
[14] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 2. Italics original.
[15] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 3.
[16] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, pp. 3-10.
[17] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 9.
[18] Hank Hanegraaff and
Sigmund Brouwer, The Last Disciple
(Wheaton: Tyndale, 2004), p. 395.
[19] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse Code, pp. xx-xxiii.
[20] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse Code, pp. 189, 225.
[21] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse Code, p. xx. Italics original.
[22] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 201.
[23] Hanegraaff, Apocalypse
Code, p. 170.
[24] Hanegraaff realizes
that his typological principle would come across as allegorical interpretation
so he attempts to deny this, Apocalypse Code, pp. 171-72.