An Overview of Dispensationalism

We're on lesson number eight tonight in ecclesiology. Last week we looked at Israel and the church. As I mentioned last week, tonight and the next two weeks, we're not going to really be doing so much Bible study as it's going to be a survey of how we fit our Bible together. I mentioned last week the Bible has the Old Testament and the New Testament. In that you'll see, of course, a lot of focus on Israel in the Old Testament. In the New Testament you see a lot of focus on the church, and how do we put that together?

Last week I mentioned that we all have various influences. I mentioned how if you have, for example, a MacArthur Study Bible, you probably have some dispensational ideas or influences whether you know it or not. Likewise, if you were to have, say, a Reformation Study Bible from Ligonier, you might have some covenantal influences as well. A lot of people aren't one or the other. They don't even know really what they are. It's a good idea to get a good survey and overview of each of these systems because each of these systems of understanding the Bible, of putting the Bible together, are formed by people who love God's Word. They are formed by people who are active followers of Christ who want to honor God and want to honor His Word and take it seriously. So it helps to know what it is these systems teach and also where they come from and where you get these ideas. So you can understand your brother.

If you have a difference with a brother, as we mentioned last week, our view of ecclesiology, how we fit the Old Testament and the New Testament together, does not divide us. It doesn't unite us either. What unites us is our soteriology, that we have one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. I mentioned last week how you would see a Ligonier Conference and you'd have ten different people on the stage, including John MacArthur. So you'd have one dispensationalist and usually eight or nine covenantal, but they got along wonderfully. Right. And that's the way that we should be. Right. And so that's our purpose tonight. If you're looking for, "Hey, I want to get some good information so I can dunk on those covenantalists," or "I can dunk on those dispensationalists," you're in the wrong place. That's not what we're doing tonight. We're just giving a survey of dispensationalism, and we'll be looking at classic dispensationalism. We'll be looking at what's called modified dispensationalism and also what's called progressive dispensationalism. Next week we're going to turn the same focus, but on covenantalism. We'll look at Westminster covenantalism, then we'll look at 1689 Baptist covenantalism, then we'll look at what's called Christian reconstructionism. Then the following week we'll be looking at progressive covenantalism. We'll be looking at these three various ways, give a good overview of them so you understand them and know what they're about.

Normally on your handout, there are fill-in-the-blanks and there's an application for each point. Not so tonight because, again, this is more of a survey rather than a Bible study. I do encourage you, though, to follow along on your handout. If you don't have the handout, they're in the blue folder back there — you're welcome to grab one and underline them. Just keep this for reference, just so you can be able to understand these things and better put them together. So let me begin with lecture point number one here.

Dispensationalism is a comprehensive hermeneutic approach to understanding Scripture. Stop right there. Hermeneutic simply means a way of interpreting Scripture.

Dispensationalism is a comprehensive way of being able to read the Scripture, to be able to understand and interpret it. Simply related to ecclesiology and eschatology. Ecclesiology is the study of the church — we're in the middle of a 25-part series right now on that here in Theology Wednesdays. And next we'll be looking at eschatology, which is the study of the last things.

Dispensationalism is Israel-centric. Now let me explain what I mean by that. That does not mean that they're not theocentric at all. In fact, dispensationalism has the highest regard to give God the glory in all things. But what it means simply by that is that the whole focus of dispensationalism tends to view Scripture as being about Israel, as chiefly being the people of God and God's faithfulness to Israel in the past, His faithfulness to Israel in the present, and His faithfulness to Israel in the future.

It teaches that God has promised Israel prosperity and dominance over their enemies. These were old covenant promises, and that God has not kept these promises yet. Note the emphasis on "as yet." God always keeps His promises. It teaches that the Messiah came and offered to usher in these promises, but He was rejected by Israel.

God has now turned His saving attention to the Gentiles. The church now enjoys a dispensation of grace, but this age is only parenthetic. In other words, the church age is temporary. And there will be a point where the church is removed from the earth and God gets back to His program with Israel.

Jesus will return and remove the church from the earth and then finish His original prophetic program with Israel. There are two separate peoples of God in dispensationalism: Israel and the church. And these two peoples of God are the focus of different testaments, old and new, and different promises, purposes, and plans. And we're going to unpack that. That's a lot of information there, but we're going to unpack that over these next few statements.

Lecture point number two.

Dispensationalism as a hermeneutical system originated in the 19th century in the teaching of John Darby. He was born in 1800 and lived until 1882. Now when I say it originated as a system, that doesn't mean that it appeared out of thin air in the 1800s. There were bits and parts of it all throughout history.

I grew up in Texas, and if you drive out in West Texas, you go through a lot of desert areas, right? As you're driving through, you may see a wheel over here. A couple miles later, you may see an axle. Maybe a few miles later, you may find a burnt-out chassis of a car. Well, all those things are there in parts, but it's not a Model T yet, right? And the idea is it was all kind of formalized as a doctrinal system in the 1800s, particularly about 1830.

Darby is credited for systemizing the dispensational system. Darby's system popularized two key connected theological innovations. One focused on ecclesiology and the other on eschatology.

Darby asserted that Israel and the church were distinct peoples of God and would experience distinct future blessings. Now say this was an innovation. This was something that wasn't commonly taught in the church for the first 1,800 years of history. Now, that does not mean that it's not true, okay? There are many doctrines that for long periods of history seem to be lost. It seems like justification by faith was lost up until the Reformation. It wasn't — it was always preached in the church. I mentioned this past Sunday when I did the hymn introduction of a man who wrote a poem, and that particular poem was actually cited by Martin Luther. He was born in 1091, but that poem was cited by Martin Luther in defense that, "Hey, what I'm teaching here is nothing new. This is something that all the saints of old have taught." But this is something that is relatively new in church history as far as being a distinct and widely taught focus — that Israel and the church were distinct. When you look at the church fathers, they all kind of assumed that Israel and the church were essentially the same or similar at least.

Darby also asserted that there would be a rapture of the church, sometimes referred to as a secret rapture. Now the word "rapture" is used all throughout the church fathers, but as far as being the way that it's used in dispensationalism, this was really unique. This was something that was not really taught widely in the church up until this time.

Darby saw a gap between the 69th and 70th week in Daniel 9:25–27. We're not going to read that or go into that because that's a big can of worms. We will do that when we get to eschatology, okay? But there's a time and there's a place for everything, and we could spend the rest of the night just on that.

He called the gap the church age. The rapture would end this church age. This rapture would be followed by a seven-year great tribulation. At the end of these seven years, Jesus will return. The temple will be rebuilt. Sacrifices will be reinstituted according to the Levitical code. And the kingdom of Israel will be reconstituted for a 1,000-year theocracy. It's kind of the mix there of both ecclesiological distinctions and eschatological distinctions that were unique and that were made when dispensationalism was formalized as a system.

Lecture point number three. Dispensationalism was popularized in America through the Bible Conference movement. There were a number of Bible conferences starting with the Niagara Convention early in the 1800s, and it went from there. Today, we still have prophecy conferences, right? Maybe you've heard of a prophecy conference or been to one. They tend to be dispensational.

Dispensationalism really got its root in what we call low churches. When I say low churches, I mean churches that don't have a classical liturgy, such as Baptist churches, some low Presbyterian churches, and what we call Pentecostal or the Charismatic Movement as it blossomed in the early 1900s. Its growth was spurred on even more through the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible. We take it for granted today that we have the Internet, right? Basically a hyper-dictionary at our fingertips on a phone, right? They didn't have that back then. And the Scofield Reference Bible was a massive success. It was one of the first study Bibles since the Geneva Study Bible, okay? The Scofield Reference Bible was influential as it included study notes written from a distinctly dispensational perspective. There were some preachers that's all they had — that was a seminary, a one-volume seminary, was the Scofield Reference Bible.

Later, the Ryrie Study Bible became just as influential. It actually surpassed the Scofield Reference Bible. In fact, I would be surprised if you or some of your family members don't have a Scofield or a Ryrie Study Bible. My grandfather had a Ryrie Study Bible, I remember that.

Dallas Theological Seminary was founded in 1924 by Lewis Sperry Chafer to provide an academic institution for the training of pastors and missionaries in dispensationalism. So that particular seminary for the longest time, and even today, is what we call a dispensational seminary, and it teaches dispensationalism. Now it's changed a little bit, and I'll get to that in a minute.

In the late 1960s and '70s, Hal Lindsey's best-selling book, The Late Great Planet Earth, helped keep dispensationalism prominent in evangelical culture. I was born in '72, sorry, I remember that very well. It was on everyone's bookshelf. I think it sold — well, was it 20 million copies? It was a huge seller. This was amplified more in the 1990s with the Left Behind series by LaHaye and Jenkins. All together, between DVDs and VHS tapes for the movies and the books, they sold 65 million units. That's a lot.

Some of the leading dispensationalist theologians are John Walvoord, Charles Ryrie, and J. Dwight Pentecost, Norman Geisler, and Charles Feinberg. So if you want to read some of these, these are great names that you can Google. Popular dispensational authors include Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, Dave Hunt, Jack Van Impe, and John Hagee. Today, Dallas Theological Seminary represents progressive dispensationalism, which I'm going to define in just a little bit. It used to teach what we would call classic or revised dispensationalism. Now it's pretty much coining what they call progressive dispensationalism. However, classic or revised dispensationalism is still taught at The Master's Seminary — John MacArthur's seminary. So those are the two heavyweight seminaries when it comes to dispensationalism.

Lecture point number four. Dispensationalism derives its name from the Greek word meaning administration or stewardship of a household. And I have here several references in the New Testament where this word is used — you can look that up on your own time.

Dispensationalists teach that God's revelation is not structured through covenants, but through dispensations. In other words, the way that it's organized is through these dispensations, these administrations. This does not mean that they ignore covenants — quite frankly, they embrace covenants. But they assert that there are differences between the ages and history of redemption, and thus differences in God's plan of salvation. In other words, in each age, God had a different redemptive purpose.

Dispensationalists teach that dispensations are divided periods of time during which God administers His plan of redemption in different ways from other periods. In each of these time periods, man is tested by God with a specific revelation of God's will.

When man fails this testing, as he always does, there is judgment, mercy, and a new divine redemptive arrangement. In its original form, classic dispensationalists taught that there are seven dispensations. Now, dispensationalism is not monolithic. There were some classic dispensationalists that thought that there were ten dispensations — there are all different ways of dividing Scripture up. But most of them taught seven. First would be innocency, and that was from creation to the fall. Then was the dispensation of conscience from the fall to the flood. Then the dispensation of human government from Noah to Babel. The dispensation of promise from Abraham to God's dealing with Israel and Egypt. The dispensation of the law from Moses to John the Baptist. The dispensation of grace from Pentecost to the rapture, which is not yet. And then the kingdom, which is the end-time millennial kingdom.

These divided periods meant that God's revelation was therefore period-specific. For example, classic dispensationalists taught that the Sermon on the Mount was meant for Israel as a kingdom ethic. Their idea was that God and Christ came to Israel and offered them the kingdom, and they rejected the kingdom. But if they had accepted it, the Sermon on the Mount would have been an ethic for that millennial period. So therefore, it's not directly applicable to the church, because each revelation is for a specific age or specific dispensation. However, they would be quick to say that we can still draw some benefit from it — some encouragement, so to speak, from it. But it wasn't intended for that dispensation, that particular audience. So she could be inspired by it.

Likewise, many dispensationalists claim that there are two new covenants — one for the church, and then one for Israel. So they would divide that up by saying that the new covenant that Jesus instituted with His disciples was for the church. But His original new covenant that He mentions in Jeremiah 31 is not yet — that's for the millennium. Because, again, each revelation goes to a specific age. Okay? You've never heard that before. It may be kind of confusing, okay? But I'm explaining it as it is taught.

Lecture point number five. Dispensationalism teaches a consistent literal hermeneutic. Every statement of the Bible is to be taken in the sense that the plain, natural meaning implies. In other words, they wouldn't say allegory — which some people would say, "Oh, well, Jesus dividing the bread and the fishes, really, He didn't really do that. That was allegorical. It's basically saying that you should share and take a little bit of something to make it into a lot," right? They reject that because that's not the plain meaning of Scripture. It's a literalist hermeneutic: every statement of the Bible is to be taken in the sense that the plain, natural meaning implies.

While acknowledging that most evangelical systems do this as well, dispensationalists assert that their system is the most consistent in doing this. And you find that particularly with revised dispensationalism. When you read Pentecost — in particular Dwight Pentecost — you know, it can come across as, "If you don't do it my way, then you're not doing it right at all."

In addition to this literal hermeneutic, classic dispensationalism applied typology loosely as a secondary observation in some instances. We talked about typology last week. It's simply a God-ordained picture, say, in the Old Testament, that looks forward and pointed to something greater, and that escalated in its fulfillment to the future, right? And so they would — classic dispensationalism actually applied typology, but very loosely, almost allegorically in some instances.

Darby and Scofield taught that we must always apply a literal hermeneutic to passages regarding Israel as they are God's earthly people because, in their view, God made literal earthly blessing promises to them. So their promises should always be taken as literally as possible. However, Darby and Scofield taught that texts related to the church, believing Gentiles, could also have a secondary typological or symbolic meaning as they are God's heavenly people. Darby said that when the Jews are addressed, we must look for exact textual fulfillment, "because earthly things were the Jews' proper portion." While when the church is addressed, then "we may look for a symbol because earthly things are not their portion." You'll find that in Darby's collected writings. So they kind of had a mixed hermeneutic depending on whether you're talking about Israel or about the church, because they were, in their mind, two separate peoples of God.

As part of this literal hermeneutic, dispensationalists teach that the Old Testament cannot reinterpret the promise or apply it to anyone but national Israel. This is what they say. It was made in that specific age to that specific people. So it can't be carried forward into the New Testament and referred to the church or to any other group. If the New Testament text indicates that a fulfillment has taken place — where it seems as if it's saying "this referred in the Old Testament to the church," or "this referred to anyone who believes in Christ" — then it must be taken as either a partial fulfillment, with the chief part yet to come in the millennial kingdom of Israel, or it can be taken as a mere application of the original text to the church.

They say that the Abrahamic covenant — which is broad, but most people reduce it down to land, also that God would make them a mighty people or a mighty nation — and that the Davidic covenant, which is the covenant where God promised that David would always have an heir sitting on the throne, that they are both unfulfilled. So they are not fulfilled in this age, but they will be fulfilled in the future messianic age.

Lecture point number seven — dispensationalism is not monolithic. What I mean by that is not all dispensationalists believe everything in lockstep. I've been doing my best to be broad and speak in generalities. I'm going to get a little bit more specific here.

Revised dispensationalists arose in the second half of the 20th century. They are represented by Charles Ryrie — that's the Ryrie Study Bible — John Walvoord, and Dwight Pentecost.

Pentecost cited first-century Judaism as support for his strict, literal, hermeneutical approach to prophecies. This is the way that they would have understood it, the first-century rabbis. So this is the way that we must understand it.

Revised dispensationalists clarified that there are not two ways of salvation. Compare Scofield 1917 to Scofield 1967 notes on John 1:17. Let me explain this.

In Scofield's Reference Bible, he had, as I mentioned, extensive notes. And some of his notes seem to indicate or suggest that people could be saved by works. Now, the revised dispensationalist says, "No, that was just loose, sloppy theology." And we're all guilty of sometimes misstating things, right? You start to talk about the Trinity and I get scared, right? Because you don't want to state something that's wrong. But I was going to give you an example of this. In Scofield 1917, this is on John 1:17 in the Scofield Bible: "As a dispensation, grace begins with the death and resurrection of Christ. The point of testing is no longer legal obedience as a condition of salvation, but acceptance or rejection of Christ with good works as a fruit of salvation." So if you had read that in the 1917 version of Scofield, it would sound like that — now we're saved by grace, but in the Old Testament we were saved by keeping the law, right?

So in the 1967 Scofield — which Scofield, of course, was no longer with us in 1967, but men like Pentecost were on the revision team for that Bible — they changed that note, rightly so, to clarify: seeing prior to the cross, salvation was through faith, being grounded in Christ's atoning sacrifice viewed anticipatorily through Christ. They believe what all evangelicals believe: that in every age, men were saved through faith in the Messiah. In the Old Testament, their faith looked forward to what the Messiah would do. Our faith, because we're on this side of the cross, looks back to what Christ has done — that He died for us. The Just One, the very perfect Son of God, paid our price. He died on the cross for sinners, unworthy sinners, right? It's all grace.

Revised dispensationalists backed away from unnuanced earlier teachings, such as the Sermon on the Mount is just for Israel in the millennial kingdom, and that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are altogether different.

They backed away from that. They still maintain it in one degree or another. But, for example, classic dispensationalists taught that there's a difference between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. You'll see Jesus refer to that all throughout the Gospels. The reason why is in Luke He says, "The Kingdom of God is within you," right? And they can't have a present kingdom, because they believe that is referring to Israel's future kingdom in the millennium, right? So they made a distinction between the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of God. Revised dispensationalism backed away from that.

Revised dispensationalists placed less emphasis on typology, removing most all the previous Scofield notes on typology in the Old Testament. They still allowed some typology — it's kind of hard to summarize, but basically they allowed it under very strict conditions. They allow about six different typological prophecies in the New Testament in total.

This results in an interpretive emphasis focused on each dispensational period — in other words, the revelation was given for that period, so it should rest in that period. For example, Joshua's conquest of Canaan is about obedience to God's command to subdue the promised land, rather than picturing Christ subduing our enemies and giving us rest. That's the way that many in evangelical circles would take that. Yes, it was true that he was commanded to conquer the land, but also it points forward to Christ, right? And we know that Joshua is actually Jesus as far as the name — Jesus and Joshua are one and the same. Likewise, the story of Joseph in regards to revised dispensationalism is about integrity and faithfulness, rather than God superintending one plan of redemption for all men centered on Jesus Christ. In other words, many evangelicals would say that God preserving Joseph there was part of His plan to keep the line of David consistent — the promises made to Abraham to a seed all the way through the Messiah, in whom the Messiah would be the Savior of the world. So it's a different way of reading. It's limiting the revelation to that specific dispensation and its application as well.

Progressive dispensationalism arose in the mid-1980s. Now this is a third type of dispensationalism, okay? It's called progressive dispensationalism. This is what's now championed and taught at Dallas Theological Seminary. They're represented by Robert Saucy, Craig Blaising, and Darrell Bock — these are three seminary professors there. These dispensationalists saw a much greater unity between the church and Israel than classic dispensationalism allowed, but they do maintain a strict distinction.

The classic dispensationalism at The Master's Seminary would not look very favorably upon progressive dispensationalism. They say there's too much continuity, okay? They argue, "No, we think there is continuity, but we still hold this distinction." In other words, the church and Israel are distinct, but we see a lot of similarity and a lot of overlap there. Some may even call that leaky dispensationalism. John MacArthur himself was very hard to actually pin down on that, because he never really expounded too much on that as a doctrine or wrote specifically about it in long form.

These dispensationalists saw greater unity between the church and Israel than dispensationalism allowed, but they maintain a strict distinction. They sought to balance discontinuity with continuity, differences with similarities. By 1991, these revisions became so extensive that they adopted the name Progressive Dispensationalism at ETS — the Evangelical Theological Society. They get together every couple of years and it's like theology-nerd heaven. They present papers and argue for various points of view. And you have folks from covenantalists to dispensationalists, you name it. All of Christendom is welcome there.

Progressive dispensationalists still maintain the distinction between Israel and the church. They still maintain a future pre-tribulational rapture. They still maintain a seven-year tribulation and a future millennial kingdom.

Progressive dispensationalism no longer considers the church to be a parenthesis in the fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic promises, but rather a first-stage partial fulfillment of that prophecy — rather than saying, "Okay, Christ came, He offered the kingdom to Israel, Israel rejected it. So then He went to a secondary plan, the church, but that's only temporary."

And once the church is removed and He gets back on with His program with Israel, they would say, "No, both Israel and the church are very much the one people of God, but under different administrations, so to speak." And they make this distinction here.

Progressive dispensationalism teaches five main differences from classic and revised dispensationalism. First, their hermeneutic allows for some expansion beyond a strict literal meaning, embracing historical, grammatical, and literary-theological interpretation. Literary-theological is where a lot of what we call typology comes in. Second, Israel and the church are two dimensions of the one people of God. Third, the present age is not a parenthesis in God's plan. Fourth, Christ has inaugurated the eschatological kingdom in His ascension — so they say that in a sense, He really is on the throne of David, where traditional dispensationalism would reject that. Fifth, there's a unified kingdom plan running through both testaments.

Progressive dispensationalism readily embraces typology as part of the literary-theological hermeneutic. The type must be a scriptural fact — a person, a place, a thing — connected to a biblical pattern, and then progress or escalate to the antitype. Type meets antitype. Type meets its fulfillment, and it's always a greater or an escalation than what the original type represented.

Lecture point number nine. All forms of dispensationalism assert that the land promise made to Abraham is unfulfilled. Remember, we've read before in Genesis 12, "Get up and go to the land I'm going to show you, right? I'm going to make you a mighty nation. I'm going to bless you, bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you, and in you all nations will be blessed." And He expounds on that, and the next several chapters expand that. It gets bigger and bigger, this land promise. It gets quite huge by the time you get to, say, Genesis 22.

When addressing texts that indicate the land promise was fulfilled — and there are several Old Testament passages that seem to indicate that, I've listed them here — I'm just going to read two of them. One of them is in Joshua 21:43–45. And you'll find it says, "So the Lord gave to Israel all of the land that He had sworn to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and not a man of all their enemies stood against them. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel — all came to pass." Sounds pretty black and white there, right? I'm going to let you read the others, especially Nehemiah 9:8 — even when they come back from captivity, a very similar statement is made.

However, dispensationalists will claim that the land was never fully occupied by Israel, and that some of these references are hyperbolic statements, or do not accurately reflect the borders that were promised to Israel. So they'll say, "Yeah, it may sound like that, but you can look through and it'll say, well, there were still Amorites in the land or Jebusites in the land. So therefore, they never really did fully possess it. So therefore, that promise wasn't fulfilled."

That's their way of looking at it. That'd be similar — just as an analogy — to saying the United States isn't really the United States because we have — where I grew up in Texas, not too far from my hometown, was an Alabama-Coushatta Indian reservation, right? They have their own sovereign nation within US borders. But would anyone say that the US doesn't control its territory?

But that's their way of doing it. They'll say it's either a hyperbolic statement, or it doesn't actually reflect the borders that were promised to Israel, or it wasn't fully occupied. All forms of dispensationalism assert that the nation or people promised to Abraham is still unfulfilled. When addressing texts that indicate that the great nation promises were fulfilled — such as, in particular, Deuteronomy 1:10 or Deuteronomy 10:22, where they're out of Egypt and God says, "Look, I've made you as I promised. I've made you as the sand of the seas," because they came out of Egypt as a great, mighty people, right?

And then Romans 4:16–17 in the New Testament. Dispensationalists say that it is partially fulfilled when Israel became a state in 1948, but it awaits full measure in the millennial kingdom. So again, they believe that it hasn't been fulfilled yet, but it only will be fulfilled in the future.

All forms of dispensationalism assert that the Davidic covenant is unfulfilled. This is the promise that David would have an heir on his throne. When addressing texts that indicate that the exalted Christ sits on David's throne and exercises all authority on earth and in heaven — such as Matthew 28:18, where Jesus says before the great commission, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" — and then Acts 2:29–36, where Peter says this is in fulfillment of God's promise to David, that Christ has risen and is seated at the right hand of God Almighty. Revelation 1:5, where it says that Christ in heaven rules over the kings of the earth.

Dispensationalists say that the promise can only be fulfilled on a physical throne in Jerusalem, ruling the world during the millennial period, because again, that promise was made with their understanding in that particular dispensation to David, and it must be fulfilled literally in Jerusalem on that throne.

The throne of God in the Old Testament is called both the throne of David, but also the throne of Solomon, the throne of God, and the throne of Yahweh — all those terms are used. So it needs to be a literal fulfillment in the millennial kingdom.

All forms of dispensationalism — and this is number twelve — assert that in the future, all Israel will be regathered in the land of Israel, and that this return will be accompanied by a return to the Lord through trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. So they believe that in the future, Israel will be reconstituted, that all Jews will converge in Israel, and that this gathering will not only constitute them as the regathered people that God had promised Abraham, but also it would be a time of revival where they actually not just physically return to the land, but where they return to Yahweh, and they become covenantally faithful to Him, believing in the Messiah.

Dispensationalists assert that the return from captivity prophesied throughout the Old Testament was only partially fulfilled in Israel's return from the Babylonian captivity. In fact, when you look throughout Scripture, every promise in the Old Testament of the end gathering — the people returning from captivity — was made before that took place. With the exception — you'll find, I think it's in Zechariah, there's one that takes place during that first stage of their return to the land from the Babylonian captivity. As you know, there were three stages: there's the return under Zerubbabel from Babylon, then there was under Ezra, and then there was under Nehemiah. And there's no specific uncontested verse in the New Testament or thereafter that talks about Israel regathering as a people. So they take the Old Testament promises of the regathering and they say, "Well, it's partially fulfilled, but not fully fulfilled in Israel's return from the Babylonian captivity."

Dispensationalists assert that the Old Testament passages predicting the return from exile, and also Romans 11:25–27 in the New Testament, predict this future physical and spiritual return. So that's the one passage in the New Testament they hang their hat on. And just like with Daniel's 70 weeks, we're going to wait till we actually get to eschatology to look at that in depth, because again, that would take up all night long. There are many different ways to be able to look at that. But it's important to know this and understand this — that they're not just pulling this out of thin air, that these are the passages that make sense in their system.

The key strength of dispensationalism is that their system seeks to take God's promises seriously, right? They don't want one word of God to drop to the ground, right? God has spoken — you better hear it, and you better follow it, and you better believe it, right? This is always commendable. And whether you agree with every point of dispensationalism, or some, or none at all, you have to respect their desire to honor God's Word, right? That's part and parcel. That was what Dwight Pentecost called the third leg, so to speak, of dispensationalism.

Lecture point number fourteen — critique. And I'm going to offer a critique for every one of these that we do: offer a critique on covenantalism next week, and a critique on progressive covenantalism after that. A critique of the dispensational hermeneutic is that it gives the Old Testament hermeneutical priority over the New Testament.

Dispensationalists claim that God must fulfill His word exactly as the original recipients would have understood. I mentioned Dwight Pentecost — he was famous for saying this, that he used first-century rabbis as an example that it was written to that culture, so that's the way that we should take much of the New Testament, right?

However, first-century rabbis had a very different conception of the Messiah, right? And they missed His coming — they rejected Him too. So it cuts both ways.

Dispensationalists claim God must fulfill His word exactly as original recipients would have understood. This hermeneutic appears contrived. The reason behind this is to keep discontinuity between Israel and the church, and this was one of their founding things — that the church and Israel were separate and that the church would be removed in the rapture. This hermeneutic ignores the canonical context. When we talk about the canonical context, we're talking about the main overarching storyline of Scripture. In other words, by focusing on individual dispensations and leaving revelation within each one of those dispensations, you miss the connected whole — the whole canonical picture that starts in Genesis 3:15, where God promised that He would send forth the Seed of Eve that would crush Satan under his heel, right? And then that's progressively revealed throughout Scripture. Through the covenants, we learn more and more; we get different ideas of who this Messiah would be through the prophets, right? And then we have John the Baptist and we have the Gospels, and they are all part of one unfolding story.

This hermeneutic ignores the canonical context, which is the overarching storyline of Scripture. This hermeneutic artificially puts a wedge between the Old and New Testaments. This seems forced, as the New Testament authors don't always seem to interpret the Old Testament in this rigid and narrow way. Now, when I say again — dispensationalism is not monolithic. As we talked about, progressive dispensationalism actually recognizes this continuing story. They recognize more of the canonical context, and of what we call typology, and of the unfolding of one plan of redemption. So again, there are various forms of dispensationalism, but in the classic and the revised sense, I believe that they miss that canonical context.

The risen Christ said to the disciples, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." Saying that the whole subject of the Psalms and of the prophets and of the writings — which was shorthand for the entire Old Testament — was Me. It says, "He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures." And we've talked before, as we've gone through hermeneutics, that even the Old Testament writers didn't always understand everything they wrote about. That's what Peter says, right? And we understand those things through the Spirit, right? Jesus opened the eyes of the disciples, and He gave us the Spirit to lead us and guide us into all truth.

So this is a general overview of dispensationalism. It's great to be able to understand and appreciate the work of theologians and what they think. You may not agree with all of it. You may not agree with any of it. It's okay. This is here for your edification. It's here for your encouragement. And again, as I said at the beginning, it doesn't matter if you're a dispensationalist, it doesn't matter if you're a 1689 covenantalist, it doesn't matter if you're a progressive covenantalist — it is not our ecclesiology that unites us. What unites us is the Lord Jesus Christ, right? That He died for me and that He rose again and that He is coming again, right? In every single group — whether you're dispensationalism in any form, revised or classic or progressive, or whether you're covenantal or progressive covenantal or 1689, whatever you are — we all agree on that. Christ crucified for sinners, and that's what unites us.