This is probably going to be the my longest post I'll ever make on my blog. This is a series of journals I kept while reading through two textbooks in for the class "Dispensational Premillennialism" at Calvary Bible College during my sophomore year in the fall of 2011. The class was taught by Joel Williamson. These are m,y thoughts while reading through each book culminating in my final. I'd like to hear your thoughts and your opinions on this. I feel this issue is important as depending on which side of the fence you are on it will determine your eschatological outlook. Without further ado, here goes nothing.
Personal Study #1 Chapters 1-3 - Journal 1
My presupposition leans toward Dispensationalism as the acceptable system. I will however try to avoid taking ‘pot shots’ so to speak against the other systems. I find that the attacks made against Dispensationalism are many times unwarranted. Granted, some proponents of the system do not necessarily represent themselves amiably. Calling the system a heresy is a problem because that would be no different than someone calling a screwdriver a bad tool just because the person using it was inept as a craftsman. People do not make doctrines right or wrong(Ryrie pg 19).
Dispensationalists do a great service to theology in the fact that they do answer the need for distinctions. As Ryrie states, any person who trusts in the blood of Christ as acceptable rather than a sheep, or observes Sunday rather than Saturday as the day of public fellowship and worship with the body, is a dispensationalist.
Dispensationalism also brings to the table a sound understanding of historical philosophy. The covenant theology perspective brings to the table an understanding that the final historical priority of God is the entrance into the eternal state. If this is the case, then even the millennial reign of our Lord Jesus will be one filled with despair. Inversely, the dispensational perspective can be skewed to assume that the eternal state bears little significance. The crux of the issue boils down to what the focal point is of historical purpose. Is it the beginning of eternity? Or a manifestation of the glory of Christ as never before witnessed by mankind in the millennial reign of Christ? As a dispensational I lean towards the latter. To quote John MacArthur, “The blessed hope isn’t that judgment is coming. The blessed hope is that Jesus is coming.”
There is no denying that God’s plans become progressively clearer to mankind as time progresses. It is not a matter of God changing, but more a matter of God revealing more information. This is the same as a parent raising a child. As the child grows older, he/she begins to learn more about what the parents wish for that child to be/do and what he/she must do in life in order to accomplish the tasks laid out for him/her.
On an initial basis, I can definitely see the plausibility for the Dispensational method. This is, as previously stated, my presupposition. One of the key proofs of Dispensationalism is that Israel is still here. Upon a study of history, one can only deduce that there is no acceptable reason for Israel to still exist except for a supernatural one. God cannot be finished with His people. There are only two groups of people in Scripture that I know of that God ever promised to establish: the church, and Israel.
The hermeneutic of Dispensationalism, when applied and used correctly, does yield the least damaging to the integrity of Scripture. If I am to err in any manner in Scripture, I would rather err on the side of letting the Bible explain itself rather than my finite mind.
In conclusion, this Bible study tool is beneficial in the fact it answers very key questions:
1. What is God’s endgame plan for the Jews and Gentiles?
2. Through what lens should we read the Bible? That lens being front to back.
3. What is the consuming act of history? That being the millennium and the reign of Christ on earth.
Journal 2
One of the greatest attacks against dispensationalism is the fact that it is a recent development. Because it does not have the backing of church history it is must therefore be a folly. The main basing of this point is that the system of dispensationalism was composed by mere men and must therefore be wrong since no one could arrive at such a belief upon interpreting the Bible on its own merit. There is a problem with this line of thinking in my opinion. This then means that everything that is not expressly written in the Bible must be condemned since they too would succumb to the label of being man-made. This line of thinking obviously falls to the law of reality since Paul uses a type of the word we now use as dispensationalism, not to mention that people HAVE arrived at this conclusion through reading the Bible. The doctrine of limited atonement is not expressly stated in the Scripture and yet, we have it and have many who hold to it, 5-point Calvinists predominantly who are also Covenant.
I agree with Ryrie most definitely with his explanation of progressive doctrinal formulation. Even covenant theologians must agree with this since their system developed via this method as well. After all, several councils had to be formed so as to hash out all the details of what books of the Bible were even canonical and which ones were not. With all the heresies of the Arians, Montanists, Marcion, and Gnostics floating around the most foundational doctrines of the Bible even had to be hammered out for all to know. Some may not have even been mentioned by name in the Bible, though the terminology itself was applied to a consistent trend in the Scripture. This is what dispensationalism is. The application of a common trend based on a term used by Paul, and applied through simple tenets. It is this application of sound hermeneutics that lead George Ladd, a nondispensational, to pay tribute to when he said, “It is doubtful that there has been any other circle of men who have done more in their preaching, teaching, and writing to promote a love for Bible study, a hunger for deeper Christian life, a passion for evangelism and zeal for missions in the history of American Christianity.”
I agree with Ryrie’s statement that theology is born out of interpretations. Interpretations are born out of a hermeneutic system. I do however disagree with his statement that systems are the end result of interpretation. I firmly hold to the fact that dispensationalism is still just a tool and not an end all. The Bible is far too complicated to be held to a simple system. The Bible must be interpreted on its own merit as best to the reader’s ability as possible.
I agree with Ryrie’s logic in that if God fulfills His prophecies literally, then it would make sense that He prophesies literally. This of course would completely nullify the covenant position since they require a theology based on conceptualization. When literal interpretation is gone, all objectivity is lost since something as quaint as manna can be interpreted metaphorically to mean the first communion for instance.
I still have a long way to go in understanding these issues, but I do know one thing is for sure: I am far too foolish a man to let my mind decide what the God of the universe was really trying to say to us. Dispensationalism is still, as of now, my firm belief.
Journal 3
One of the biggest attacks against dispensationalism is that it teaches multiple ways of salvation. Most of this stems however from poorly worded statements made by theologians. What the key issue is here is whether or not man is saved by works of the law in the Old Testament and then grace in the New Testament. God does not change. His salvation cannot change. Chafer, Scofield, and several dispensational writers have stated the law was expressly designed to show the Israeli people their need for Christ and to give them a sense of dependence on Him.
This is not satisfactory for most nondispensationalists. They wish to drive at the dispensations of law and grace so harshly declaring that dispensationals teach multiple ways of salvation. The problem with this is that they won’t even listen to the defenses made by the men who wrote what they are attacking.
With being said, law and grace are in some way linked. The law, like grace, was not something that the Israelites earned. It was something handed down to them by God Himself. It was an establishment of a theocracy where a reliance on the flesh was severely punished. Because the dispensations build on each other, the law cannot be an backwards step by any stretch of the imagination but rather a step forward. It was the giving of the law that made Israel famous among the nations as seen in Deuteronomy 4 and 33. The law did not nullify God’s covenant with Abraham by any means. What it did was outline the nature of the transgressions until Christ should come.
The last issue when it comes to the law is salvation. What the dispensational theologian cannot stress enough is that the method of salvation never changes. The object of faith in every age is God, the content is the redeemer. Ryrie uses the example of the Adam and Eve looking at the fur coats that God made for them just outside the garden of Eden. They didn’t know that Jesus was coming many years later, but they did have an understanding that their had to be a redeemer and that He was coming.
The final issue to address in this summary is the church and its distinctiveness.
When Christ died on the cross, the dividing wall was broken down between the Jews and gentiles. As opposed to the Jews, Christ indwells the members of the body of believers.
The church has a distinct time of operation. The church is a mystery character so to speak because it is not spoken of in Old Testament times. It is a new creation Ephesians 2:15 made possible in the death of Christ. It did not begin until the day of Pentecost.
The church is an organism that awaits earnestly the return of Christ. The church being established in the New Testament does not mean that there were no believers who did not have a right standing with God, or that Christ is not the founder of the church. The church is Christ’s, created by Christ. The church and Israel are distinct.
Lastly, even though the church is distinct from Israel, this does not mean that the church will not enjoy the blessings of the millennial reign of Christ. They will not have the blessings as physical Israel. They may be of the seed of Abraham, but they are not the promised physical seed of Abraham.
I agreed with a lot that Dr. Ryrie said in these chapters. There appeared to be no glaring issues to address. A good read to be sure.
Journal 4
As stated before, covenant theology is an issue I like to learn about because so many of my acquaintances follow the belief. Having assessed my problems with it in the last journal, I would like to look at the positives to it.
Because a vast majority of covenant theologians are heavily Calvinistic, their understanding on the grace of God, the redemptive work of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith has produced some of the finest works on the topics ever. One thing I have also appreciated from covenant theology is the great attention it gives in the recognition of Christ as the central figure of history. Jesus Christ is after all the accomplishment of God’s purpose for history. It has also made an honest attempt to be faithful to Scripture while properly teaching the biblical philosophy of history.
I appreciate these points of covenant theology immensely because I have found in my personal experience that the American church has grown very apathetic in its understanding of Christ to the point that Christ is viewed more as a buddy rather than the Lord of our lives that He is. I have noticed that the grace of God has been diminished in the modern church to the point that the “autonomy” of man has become the deciding factor relegating God’s workings to borderline deism. God has often become a God who is “out there” rather than here.
Christ’s centrality in history is even being undermined now. For many years our dating systems have revolved around the “B.C. and A.D.” abbreviations. Christ has now been removed even from these and we now refer to them as the “B.C.E. or Before Common Era, and C.E. or Common Era.”
In summary, I have found that though I do have disagreements with covenant theology as a whole(as stated in my previous journal), there are some great things to gain from it and the people who practice when studied carefully. As always I maintain that any system, albeit covenant or dispensationalism, must be used as a tool that works off the Bible rather than the Bible off the system.
Journal 5
As I read this class’s textbooks and talk out the issues within them I gain more and more knowledge on the issues. One of the interesting things I learned while reading the assigned reading is that dispensationals pay a lot of attention to and put a lot of stock in the sovereignty of God. I find this interesting since in the research I’ve done, dispensationalists are either Arminian or 4-point Calvinists. This is something that I’ve thought that covenant theologians might have in common with dispensationals since covenanters are Calvinists, they would also stress the sovereignty of God.
God’s sovereignty, upon finally noticing it, is so brilliantly shown in His progressive revealing of His of style of rule throughout history. God shows His distinctive plan for His people of that time period without ever changing the method of salvation. God declares what His way of administering rule is for the specific dispensation is and shows his sovereignty through His continual decrees.
It is also interesting how God’s rule can be universal or very specific. For instance, the inward law that mankind is created with which instills in them objective moral truth comes from being in the image of God. The Mosaic Law on the other hand, was given specifically to the Israelites and only to the Israelites. I liken this to the parable of the landowner who entrusted a portion of talents to three of His servants. These servants were given specific responsibilities. The same responsibility did not apply to all the other land owners in the world, but simply to the servants of the landowner who traveled away.
The next point I wish to address is something that has recently come to my attention is conversations on the class period with several of my friends. That is the misunderstanding of what actually is a literal, historical, grammatical hermeneutic. The best example I can think of to stress this point is John 10:9 which says, “I am the door…” Jesus isn’t not saying that He is a literal door. But He is literally saying that He is the doorway. He is literally saying that He is the entrance into heaven. The glorious thing about the Bible is the way that it explains itself. Jesus goes on to say in that same passage that “anyone who enters through Me will be saved.”
Jesus also says in John 14:6 that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus was not a pantheist. Everything that has life is not Jesus. But what Jesus was saying is He is the giver of life. “No one comes to the Father but through me.” Jesus seems to use the same language as if He was a doorway to pass through so that one may enter eternal life. This teaching of doorways seemed to be prevalent in His teaching. He also said in Matthew chapter 7 for people to “enter through the narrow gate. The gate is broad and the path is wide that leads to destruction.” There is a massive difference between saying something literally, and literally saying something.
The Bible always explains itself. I firmly believe that. I am confident that I have no need to impose on its text my assumptions.
Journal 6
I am curious to learn how a covenant theologian would change his/her interpretation of the word “everlasting” from the Abrahamic covenant to John 3:16 which states that we shall have “everlasting life.” One interpretation of everlasting ends in Joshua, the other interpretation of everlasting does not end. I would like to learn how they differentiate.
The Abrahamic covenant guarantees that Israel will own the land until the end of time. When Israel took the land of Canaan in the book of Joshua, it says that everything God promised was given to them by God. I don’t know if we will be covering this in class, but I would like to know how this can be interpreted since from what I understand, the Israelites did not take everything that they were promised. They did not drive out all the inhabitants from the land, they still had enemies around them, and all the borders of the land expressed in Genesis to Abraham were not fully attained from what I understand.
My question is did God promise a different land(from the perspective of the borders of the land) to Abraham than the promised land of Moses? Or was the passage in Joshua simply stating that God did what He said He would do and now He would fulfill it for the rest of history? The reason I ask is because I have had this argument presented before me several times on topics of dispensationalism vs covenant theology. The inconsistent hermeneutic argument seems like a weak argument since everyone is inconsistent with their hermeneutic. We have problems with covenant people because of how they often interpret the word “all” in the New Testament. I’m sure they have a problem with the way we interpret this passage in Joshua. If I could get your thoughts, sir, that would be most helpful.
The most interesting aspect of the study of the covenants is that God Himself will bring Israel back to repentance. They will repent in those last days, and will finally be the representatives of God that they were always meant to be. This author cannot imagine how wonderful it will be for God to finally hear His people proclaim in unison, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” in those last days.
Journal 7
Most of this journal will consist of questions that I have been on my mind during this course and through my personal study of the Bible. I preface this by saying that I am not trying to find fault in dispensationalism, because I still find it to be true, but I simply wish to have answers to questions that will be thrown at me.
I am understanding that the Davidic covenant must be fulfilled at a later date. I wonder greatly how a covenant theologian can think that Christ is reigning right now on that Davidic throne because of the following reasons:
1. If we are commanded to pray in accordance with the Lord’s prayer, and the kingdom has already come, then is this current state of affairs of the earth reflective of how Christ’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven?”
2. If this is how Christ’s kingdom is going to be carried out, then why are we who serve Christ progressively losing our freedoms to openly serve Him?
3. David never reigned in my heart. How can his throne be there now?
My questions for dispensationalism are as follows:
1. In Hosea chapter 2:16, Hosea prophecies(assumedly to the Israelites) that they would no longer call God, Master or Ishi as the NASB translates it, but Baali which I believe means husband(sorry if I screwed it up). I believe the context is talking about the restoration of Israel as they worship God once and for all. Would not dispensationalism teach that God has a different relationship with Israel than He does to the church? I know that the church is referred to as the body of believers. I ask this questions just because at face value it strikes me as a covenant proof so to speak. I would appreciate your wisdom, sir.
2. Is it a fair argument that when Christ says, “I will never leave you, or forsake you,” He is speaking to His peoples? Peoples being Israel and the church. It would not make sense, in my mind at least, for Christ to be only with Christians who are His people and not the Jews who disobeyed Him who are also His people. Is this a valid point?
If you can answer these in class or jot them down on my paper that would be most helpful.
Journal 8
I will end this journal of the Ryrie book the same that I began it.My presupposition leans towards dispensationalism. This journal shall be an analysis of covenant theology since it hits so close to home as many of my friends are of the covenant disposition.
Because m,y friends are so heavily involved with covenant theology I have come to learn quite a bit about the belief. I have also com,e to see the similarities between dispensationalists and covenant thinking. I have found that the discord lies in the issue of continuity. Covenant theology bases a portion of it veracity on its longstanding history in the church. Though I do not know a vast amount of church history I have heard conflicting reports. The covenant theologians that I have heard base their belief on the teachings of the apostolic fathers and the first century church leaders. My presupposition leads me to accept the teachings of Mr. Williamson and Dr., Ryrie that it was not that long ago and not long before dispensationalism itself was formed. In honest opinion, the church history argum,ent is the weakest of their defenses. Not to diminish the impact of church history plays on our beliefs.
The covenant theologian relies on covenants that are implied though perhaps not expressly stated though they will disagree. The problem is that these implied covenants are not the way that God's word communicates normally in my clearest understanding. God appears to make sure that His word interprets His word, no more and no less. Implied meaning can lead to endless rabbit trails.
Another tenet is the hermeneutical system of reading the New Testament into the Old. My problem with this line of thinking is that it states by logical conclusion that the Old Testament was completely impossible to understand for no less than 1,000 years. My initial assessment of this statement makes me ask the question, "why didn't God give us the New first?"
The final thing is that obviously due to some slips of the tongue by covenant theologians, as disipesationalists do, they have caused people to think that salvation comes through different means according to the different covenants. I will give covenant theologians the benefit of the doubt due to the fact that based on my personal experience their soteriology is very sound on several respects.
Journal 9
One of the things that drive dispensational eschatology is the use of a "consistent" hermeneutic. The interesting this is that covenant theologians believe their hermeneutic is just as consistent. When it comes to the study of the end times I believe that the best way to read and interpret the text is to let the text decide what the text says. In my reading of the text this is the only methodology that I have ever come across that truly allows the Bible to say what it actually says.
When it comes to eschatology the covenant viewpoint comes to some fantastic viewpoints when it comes to the book of Revelation. Revelation 20 is quite clear. The Jews must attain to the third aspect of the Abrahamic covenant at some point. They have received the land through Moses and Joshua which is an eternal possession, they received the seed through the line of David, and they will receive blessing during the millennial reign of Christ. To snatch this final, unfulfilled promise from the Jews and place it on the church is in my opinion quite irresponsible. The Old Testament provides an objective guide to the importance of not just the restoration of Israel, but to the millennial reign of Christ on earth.
Final Argument:
A dispensations is defined as a specific outworking of God's grace in a specific length of time, or stewardship. God had specific commands for all of them. They consist of the following: Innocence(Genesis 1:3-3:6), Conscience(Genesis 3:7-6:1), Human government(Genesis 6:1-Genesis 11), Patriarchal rule(Genesis 12-Exodus 20), Mosaic law(Exodus 20-Acts 2), Grace(Acts 2-Revelations 19), and Millennium(Revelation 20). Though the age of the church is referred to as the dispensation of grace, this does not mean that God's grace was not present of mandatory throughout. It was the very grace of God that kept Adam and Eve alive immediately after the fall, and it is that saving grace of God that grants us life still today. These dispensations are not God changing the rules on mankind as though this were a poorly constructed game of dodgeball. This is God's progressive revelation to His people as He provides more and more information to His people when the time is right.
Next is the major tenets of Dispensationalism. Ryrie lists 3 but I have added a 4th.
1. Israel and the church are distinct.
2. A consistent, literal, historical, and grammatical hermeneutic.
3. The purpose of history is the glory of God.
4. The Bible is to be interpreted from Old to New.
Tenet 1: The church did not begin in Genesis 12 or Genesis 1. Jesus would seem, quite silly if He said He was going to establish the church when in reality it already existed. The church is also not mentioned in the book of Revelation past chapter 5. This is because the church is gone after the rapture. This type of replacement theology only occurs when one interprets the Bible through a faulty double-hermeneutic.
Tenet 2: The Bible is a book that does indeed take some time to study, but it is not under any circumstance a code book, laced with subtleties that only a gifted cyrptographer could deduce. The Bible is meant to be understood, on its own merit. When the Bible interprets the Bible, we can truly submit ourselves to the sovereignty of God. Ironically, I see the 5-point Calvinist covenant theologian exert some of the most freewill in how they interpret the Bible. I very often consider Covenant theologians as Neo-Arminians because they believe that Israel could choose to forfeit a covenant that they could not choose to get in to.
Tenet 3: All of creation must one day proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the chief purpose of history. Salvation is just one of the ways that this is done. All of history must reflect God's glory ,when all is re,made into God's great image and all of creation can for the rest of eternity say Glory to God in the Highest!
Tenet 4: God did not give us the Bible in reverse order, as some covenant theologians think. I have heard quite a few say that just to understand the Old Testament one must understand the New. I disagree with that vehemently. One cannot know the greatness of God's grace, nor defend even our own existence if one does not know the beginning. If the Bible was to be interpreted in the lens of the New, then the 1,000 years of revelation were for all intents and purposes meaningless. This is easily contradicted by Joshua 1:8. No one reads any book from back to front, unless its the Bible apparently. We think, and rightly so, that someone is crazy if they read any of Tolkien's works from back to front in order to piece together a truer understanding. All languages form a specific pattern for understanding that is sensible, and logical, from front to back.
The bottom line is that dispensationalism shows and proves the need for distinctions in the text. There has to be becuase things are clearly different from passage to passage. Not inconsistent, just different. The empowewring and indwelling of the Holy Spirit are a classic example of this. Dispensationalism, elevates the Bible as the Word of God that should not be tampered with. I do not wish to ever become the arbiter of what is and is not truth.
That's basically it. To all my readers who are covenant theologians, I apologize if I hurt you. That was not my intent. This is merely my opinion from what I read in Scripture. I do believe that I was quite fair though in most of my statements and handled it all casually. I hope you enjoyed and were forced to think little.
God bless,
Ross
