Dispensationalism

This post will give a brief look at dispensationalism (and why it is wrong).

The story of dispensationalism begins in the early to mid 19th century in the British Isles. Usually dispensationalism is depicted (accurately enough) as arising largely from the teaching of a small sect known as the Plymouth Brethren, and one member in particular, John Darby. In the US dispensationalism took off with the support of such famous figures as Dwight Moody.

As with many of the movements in the history of the church dispensationalism grew out of reaction to real problems but went too far in its own teachings. Also like most movements it has its extremists, and its not so extreme members.

In the previous post I talked about the covenants God has made with man down through history. For most of the history of the church this covenantal view has been the predominant vision for understanding the history of God's dealings with man.
One of the problems that grew out of this covenantal view was the idea which is known today as "replacement theology". This view is not an inevitable conclusion from the covenantal view but its development was influenced by many causes.
Replacement theology teaches that the Church "replaced" Israel and thus the Jews are no longer God's chosen people. They are just people like anyone else and all of the biblical promises that God made to Israel now apply to the Church, and not to the Jews.
This view appeared very early in Church history and was undoubtedly partially due to the troubles between Jews and Christians. In the early Church the Jews frequently sought to persecute Christians even to the point of deliberately lying to Roman government officials etc. in order to bring the Romans down on Christians. The strategy worked very well.
The sad result was that Christians eventually turned against the Jews and returned hate for hate and spite for spite.

Dispensationalism seeks to provide an alternative view and thus goes away from the ideas of covenantalism which it identifies as "replacement theology".

Rather than simply organizing the bible history around the covenants God makes, dispensationalism organizes it into "dispensations" which roughly correspond to the covenants. The word dispensation means "economy" or "administration". It is supposed to identify the means by which God deals with mankind during a given time period.

For example dispensationalism usually divides biblical history up into seven dispensations. They are as follows...

the dispensation of innocence - this is the time before Adam fell. God dealt with man through man's innocence.

the dispensation of conscience - this is the time from Adam's fall to Noah. God dealt with each individual person through their own conscience.

the dispensation of government - From Noah to Abraham, God dealt with mankind through governments, God appointed kings etc.

the dispensation of patriarchs - From Abraham to Moses God dealt with Mankind through the Patriarchs of the Hebrew people.

the dispensation of Law - From Moses to Christ God dealt with mankind through the law of Moses given on Mt. Sinai.

the dispensation of Grace - From Christ until the millenium God deals with mankind through the Grace Christ purchased for us with his blood.

the dispensation of the millenium - God will rule man directly as Jesus Christ sits as king over the world.

Also in addition to those, dispensationalists tend to break the history of the world up into "ages" which sort of relate to those dispensations.

the first age is the age of gentiles which goes from the beginning until Abraham
then is the age of Israel from Abraham to Pentecost
then is the age of the Church from Pentecost until the rapture
then is a flash-back to the age of Israel in the tribulation
then of course the final millenial age

Each dispensation ends when the next begins, each age ends when the next begins etc etc.

Now, all branches of Christian theology contain the idea of progressive revelation. This is the idea that God has progressively throughout history revealed more and more of himself and his truth. Just as schools build education by starting with the simple and moving to the complex, so God has revealed his truth progressively, precept upon precept, principle upon principle.

Dispensationalism takes this idea and runs with it to a degree that I don't think is really biblical. It is clear in the bible that God judges people according to the light they are given. Thus he was more lenient with people in the past who did not have the same level of revelation that we do. However, there is no real indication in scripture that God has ever dealt with manking in significantly different ways. That is to say, people from Adam down to us have always been saved by grace through faith. No one has ever been saved by Law, or by Conscience, or by Government.
Just as the new testament writers say of Abraham, he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham was saved by faith, just as we are. The only difference is that he was looking forward to the cross in faith, we look back at the cross in faith.

One of the central issues (if not THE central issue) with dispensationalism is the relationship between the Church and Israel. Dispensationalism draws a stark distinction between the church and Israel. Israel is not the church, and the church is not Israel. In dispensationalism they are seen as two completely seperate entities.

In this understanding then the promises made to Israel in the bible apply only to Israel, and not to the church etc.

This issue is complex because both sides are wrong. Thus it is difficult not to get lumped into one side or the other simply because you disagree with the other side.

First, the Church and Israel are not seperate. Second, Israel is not permanently abandoned by God.

Israel was created by the covenant God made with Abraham. God told Abraham that he would bless the whole world through Abraham's house, and he told Abraham that he would become a great nation, numbered greater than the stars of heaven, or the grains of sand by the sea.

It was God's intention from the very beginning to bring all nations into the assembly of his Chosen through this covenant with Abraham.
What the dispensationalists, and the Jews all failed to see in this was that this covenant was one of FAITH not of genetics only. This covenant was made with Abraham BECAUSE of Abraham's faith. Abraham is not only the father of the Israelites, he is the father of all who have faith.

ever sang the song "Father Abraham" ?? "Father Abraham has many sons, I am one of them, and so are you". A simple children's song but it captures the truth that Paul tried to teach in Romans. Paul makes it undeniably clear that ANYONE who believes in Christ by faith is a child of Abraham, and is made an heir with Christ in Abraham's covenant.

Dispensationalists tend to see the church almost as a footnote, a parenthetical note to the old testament. Something unforseen and unexpected. Yet if you read the Old Testament prophets carefully, you can see that God forsaw the church and intended it the entire time. All of the times God spoke through the prophets that in a later day he would do something new, something different than the covenant he made with their fathers etc.

There has ALWAYS only ever been one assembly of the chosen. Further that assembly of Chosen ones has ALWAYS been defined by FAITH.

Further, Paul tells us clearly that Jesus came specificly for the purpose of "breaking down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and to make of the two, one new man." That one new man is the Church.

the dispensationalists, and even the covenantalists err greviously when they see the church as "gentile". The Church is not gentile, it is neither Jew nor Gentile, it is something new.

Now, on the other side of things those who believe in replacement theology have also made a mistake. For some reason or other people never seem to be able to just take scripture at face value.
When Paul says that all who believe in Christ by faith are Children of Abraham and true Jews, the dispensationalists can't believe him.
When Paul says that the Natural Jews still have great benefit and still are set apart and that God will honor his promises to them and call them back.. the replacement theology people just can't believe him.

In both cases they read it and think to themselves... this doesn't fit with my school of theology... thus obviously Paul must mean something else!

The truth is that we as Christians are the assembly of God's chosen, we are the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, we are the children of Abraham.
It is also absolutely true that God will honor every promise he made to Abraham natural descendants. The Nation of Israel will be brought back just as Paul said.


Now, Paul also makes it clear that God "vieled" natural israel. He removed them from their place because of their unbelief. He has prevented them from seeing and accepting the truth because of their unbelief. Paul tells us that in this God is working two purposes. #1 he is using the unbelief of the Jews to save the gentiles. The church is reaping a harvest among the gentiles because the Jews refused to believe. #2 Paul tells us that God is also using this to make Israel jealous.. to rekindle their old zeal and their desire for him. This is just as he did in the past when he sent them into exile.

The time will come when natural Israel will return to God and will be joined into the one Church along with the gentiles and together they will fulfill the one new man.

Now, back to dispensationalism.

There are varying extremes, however, it is not uncommon for dispensationalists to think that there are actually seperate gospels for the Jews and Gentiles. Often you will find dispensationalists who think, for example, that Peter was the apostle of the Jews, and Paul the apostle of the Church (ie gentiles) thus what Peter wrote is the Gospel for the Jews, while what Paul wrote is the Gospel for the gentiles.

Some of the more extreme groups will also argue that the gospels do not apply to gentiles since they were written before the church came into existence at pentecost. Some of the most extreme dispensationalists argue that the church did not come into existence until Paul was converted, and thus anything before that (including baptism) does not apply to gentiles.

All of this is in clear contradiction of what the bible says. There is ONE gospel, ONE baptism, ONE Church, ONE Spirit, ONE God, and Father of all.