Posted on 01/21/2010 3:27:25 AM PST by Gamecock
Dispensationalism is a relatively modern hermeneutic, or way of interpreting the scriptures, that has roots in the teachings of John Darby, was greatly popularized by C. I. Scofield, through the notes in his study bible, became influential through the establishment of Dallas Theological Seminary and many of its professors, including Lewis Sperry Chafer and Charles Ryrie, and has been greatly sensationalized and made influential at a popular level through the fiction and dramatic predictions and interpretations of authors such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. Today, Dispensationalism is hugely influential worldwide, having a significant impact not just on the doctrine of the Church, but even on global politics, as the Dispensationally-driven Christian Zionist movement, championed by such men as John Hagee, has largely shaped America's Middle Eastern policies for many years.
Dispensationalism is by no means a monolithic school of thought, and ranges from some very extreme errors on the far right, such as the teaching that modern orthodox Jews who reject Christ may still be saved through the Torah, to the much more conservative and scholarly beliefs of the Progressive Dispensationalists such as Craig Blaising and Darrel Bock; but in essence, it may be summed up as the method of interpreting the scriptures which sees two distinct peoples of God, with two distinct destinies: Israel and the Church. The most common form of classic (sometimes called “revised”) Dispensationalism adheres to the following points of belief:
1.The Church is not the continuation of God's Old Testament people, but a distinct body born on the Day of Pentecost.
2.The Church is never equated with Israel in the New Testament, and Christians are not Jews, true Israel, etc.
3.The prophecies made to Israel in the Old Testament are not being fulfilled in the Church, nor will they ever be.
4.The Church does not participate in the New Covenant prophesied in the Old Testament; it is for ethnic Israel, and will be established in a future millennial kingdom.
5.The Old Testament saints were saved by faith alone, on the basis of the Calvary-work of Christ alone; however, the object of their faith was not Christ, but rather the revelation peculiar to their dispensation.
6.The Old Testament saints did not know of the coming “Church Age,” of the resurrection of Christ, or basically, of what we today call the gospel.
7.When Jesus came to earth, he offered the Jews a physical kingdom, but they rejected him.
8.When Jesus proclaimed “the gospel of the Kingdom,” it was the news about how ethnic Jews might enter and find rewards in this physical kingdom, and is to be distinguished from the gospel as defined in I Corinthians 15:3-4, which the apostles later proclaimed to the church.
9.After the Jews rejected Jesus' kingdom offer, he inaugurated a parenthetical “Church Age,” which will be concluded immediately before God again takes up his dealings with his national people, ethnic Israel.
10.During the “Church Age,” Jesus is not reigning from the throne of David; he is engaged instead in his priestly work, and his kingly work will take place in the future millennial kingdom.
11.At some unspecified but imminent time, Jesus will return (but not all the way to earth, just to the air) and rapture his Church, also called his Bride; for the following seven years, they will feast with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb; meanwhile, on earth, he will begin to deal with his national people, ethnic Israel, again, calling them to himself and preserving them in the midst of seven years of great tribulation; at the midpoint of which, the Antichrist will set himself up as god in the rebuilt Jewish temple, and demand worship from the world.
12.After these seven years, Christ will return, this time all the way to earth. He will defeat the forces of evil, bind Satan and cast him into a pit, and inaugurate the physical Jewish Kingdom that he had offered during his life on earth. The Jews who survived the tribulation will populate the earth during this blessed golden era, and the Christians will reign spiritually, in glorified bodies.
13.After these thousand years, Satan will be released and will gather an army from the offspring of the Jews who survived the tribulation. He will be finally defeated and cast into hell. At this time, the wicked dead will be resurrected and judged, whereas the righteous dead had already been resurrected one-thousand-seven years previously, at the rapture. Christ will then usher in the New Heavens and New Earth, and the destinies of all mankind will be finalized. Dispensationalists are divided as to whether or not there will remain a distinction between Christians and Jews in the New Earth.
Get your popcorn ready.
(If not today, then tommorrow.)
I have spent some time looking at this theory and explanation by many of the church leaders present and past regarding these “dispensations” or changes in God’s dealings with mankind. I believe that it is mans way of explaining something complex when he refuses to see something simple; God’s plan.
All of this is predicated on the idea that through the eons of time, God has changed his course, His intentions, beliefs, allegiances, His mind etc.
This is error forged on self-righteous pride and refusal to listen to God’s heart and to read God’s preserved and inerrant story. But a thorough and complete “two house” understanding and study without going off into misdirected and un-rooted theologies presents us with God as unchanging from the foundations of the world.
The simple reality is that from His calling out of Abraham to Messiah to the end of the age and the “heavenly” conclusion, it has always been about Israel.
Israel as a Patriarch,
Israel as a tribe,
Israel as a Nation,
Israel as a divided Kingdom; Ephraim and Judah.
The divided kingdom Israel fulfilling its appointed times and places.
Israel receiving the Messianic hope appointed from before the foundation of the world.
Israel’s Messiah Yeshua of the tribe of Judah teaching the new covenant of grace and Torah upon the heart.
Israel’s Messiah announcing the time to begin the re-gathering of the two kingdoms again into one kingdom – one stick in the Father’s hand.
And the hope of a reluctant Jewish rabbi named Paul who when he finally gets it, . becomes an emissary to the “gentiles” - to a bunch of lost sheep. And from a vision received directly from the Master foresees a time when with his help “all Israel” will again be gathered as one!
(Rom 11:25 For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, lest you should be wise within yourselves; that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the nations has come in. )
Dispensationalism (caused by anti-sematism in the church leadership both Catholic and Protestant) is the way the church has come to institute the misunderstanding of “Israel.”
Thanks for this series.
This veers dangerously close to Marcionism. I must admit that Marcionism does have an allure.
I’m not sure I understand a few lines in your post but simply stated imo dispensationalism is a model that works.
I’m sure we’ve seen kids assemble a jigsaw puzzle and force peices togther. At the time it might look right but eventually there will be major misfits and jagged edges.
Basic dispensationalism (EW Bullinger fan here) allows the Bible to fit together easily and removes most of the apparent contradictions in traditional teaching.
What allure does it have for you?
I think like a lot of new solutions to old issues, while dispensationalism may seem to solve “most of the apparent contradictions of traditional teachings” it brings with many more other apparent contradictions.
Complex, multiple “2nd” coming(s) of Christ is a huge one, for example.
It appears to me, in an effort to make everything understandable, by attempting to systematize and remove the mysteries of what holy Scripture teaches about Jesus’ 2nd Coming, Dispensationalism minimizes what is a major theme in the New Testament, namely that New Covenant of the Lord Jesus was bringing in (nasty, dirty, defiled, pagan) Gentiles into His covenant love of Israel, by the formation of the Church.
All the indicators are that with the person and work of Christ Jesus He has made and is making one people of God, not two.
The Reformed churches have a great deal right, but unfortunately the "plank in their eye" is how much of the RCC they brought with them when they finally figured out that church could not be reformed. Amillennialism is one of those teachings they brought with them.
Amillennialism helps justify Christian churches becoming a part of the state and the numerous atrocities committed in the name of Christianity because "the church" is reigning for Jesus on earth. Prior to the Dark Ages where a state church attempted to take control of religious thought you will find theologians that believed in Premillenialism. IOW, it is not something new.
Well said.
I’m comfortable with a return ‘for’ and a return ‘with’ his saints.
It sure seems that is what the Greek says.
I’m not very concerned about traditional teachings anyway since traditional teachings are full of paganism, bunny wabbits, eggs, and solstice worship.
So why shouldn’t I be positively inclined to reject tradition when something else is offered?
bookmark
It deceptively seems to answer the question of why the God of the OT seems sterner than the God of Love of the NT.
What answer would you give to that 2,000 year old question?
Marcion had an answer.
Do you?
No Christian can contend that and in fact be a Christian, since the understanding of Christ being the necessary-for-all universal Savior is inextricably foundational to what Christianity is.
Yep, as modern as Paul’s epistles.
What happens to the Jews after the "fullness of the Gentiles is brought in"?
Those who are predestined to salvation are regenerated, come to faith and join Christ's church, as they have in all the centuries since Christ's ascension. They become Christians.
To say that Jews are a separate salvific body, with separate benefits, is a "problem" (putting it mildly). To say that Jewish derived Christians in the church have a different set of benefits from Gentile Christians, likewise.
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