Where Is Dispensationalism Going? (Part 2)
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Read the series.
Is dispensationalism dead? Well, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of its demise have actually been greatly exaggerated.
As I write this series of articles, I have just returned from The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry’s international staff conference, which was held in early May at the Sandy Cove Conference Center. The Friends of Israel will turn 85 years old this December, and I can attest that the organization remains thoroughly and carefully committed to traditional dispensational theology. At our core, we stand on the same foundational truths that undergirded men like Lewis Sperry Chafer and Harry Ironside when they formed this ministry beginning in 1938.
As we gathered with our “fellow laborers” (Philem. 24) from points around the globe, the experience was almost surreal. Some of these dear people labor diligently right there in Israel. Other brave men and women have spent much of the past year rescuing Jewish people from the horrors of war-torn Ukraine. As one of my colleagues noted, these international workers have little time or motivation to amend their theology.
One of the reasons, in fact, that I pursued service with The Friends of Israel is that I aspire to remain on the cutting edge of the dispensational premillennial movement as it has been handed down to us today.
In June, Lord willing, I will be attending the national convention of IFCA International—exhibiting there for FOI for the third consecutive year. Several hundred people will gather in Covington, Ky.—almost all of them Christian leaders and their spouses. Nearly every one of them will be dedicated to traditional dispensational theology—and can explain why.
After more than 90 years, the IFCA remains vibrantly committed to its dispensational heritage. Executive director Dr. Richard Bargas has made it abundantly clear that this is a flag worth planting—as he is wont to say—and one which will serve to define his time in office. While certainly not alone in this regard, the IFCA is positioned to lead in demonstrating the significance of traditional dispensational theology in today’s world.
There are other notable events that also raise the dispensational flag high each year, such as the Pre-Trib Study Group Conference, as well as the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics. These groups each continue to produce a wealth of information for scholars and laymen, alike.
As we evaluate the state of dispensationalism in our time, we would have to affirm that there is no single flagship organization that sends out marching orders to the rest of the movement. There’s no brain trust distributing talking points. There’s not one gigantic seminary that unifies the movement. In fact, there seems to be a rather robust discussion ongoing among various dispensational seminaries regarding some of the finer—and sometimes not-so-fine—points of theology.
Perhaps it is time for us to embrace these realities and celebrate them, especially in light of our history. Consider the upside to the fact that there is no particular entity or institution which has the capacity to alter the whole movement. Instead, this movement thrives in many smaller schools, in countless (mostly smaller) churches, promoted by faithful pastors (most of whom will never come close to being famous), exegeted in home study groups and through conferences that attract people to sacrifice their weekends in exchange for in-depth instruction on the Scriptures. In short, the current situation harkens back to dispensationalism’s humble beginnings—born out of intensive Bible study by individuals, in homes, in churches and in conferences.
And, mind you, there are millions of copies of study Bibles, theology books and other volumes from a dispensational perspective—many produced by major publishing companies—that are still in circulation in our society.
And, if you think that everything in the world of Reformed theology has been streamlined for success, think again. Major issues are under discussion in their camps—and some of them are incredibly divisive. Not the least significant of these involve the rise of new covenant theology and progressive covenantalism. There are also ever-changing attempts to explain and describe how the church replaces Israel—a rather fundamental element of any non-dispensational system, in my opinion.
Samuel admonished King Saul with the reality that it was “when [he was] little in [his] own eyes” (1 Sam. 15:17) that he was at the height of his spiritual capability. The same could arguably be said about his successor, King David, as well. Jesus endearingly referred to His followers as a “little flock” in Luke 12:32. “Do not fear,” He said on that basis, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Yes, many of us persist in traveling on “the old paths” (Jer. 6:16) of dispensationalism. Perhaps the movement still has more momentum than we commonly ascribe to it. The real issue is where we should go from here.
And I will discuss that specific subject further in the next installment in this series.
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Paul Scharf 2023 bio
Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.
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In light of the subject matter of this series I believe my seven issues above are not incidental. They are the main issues that are leading Dispensationalism in the wrong direction and that threaten its future, and they are never addressed. There is a malaise among Dispensationalists to tackle these kinds of issues. Meanwhile other systems (like CT) have far outpaced DT in these areas. One is hard-pressed even to find a decent definition of Dispensationalism. Howbeit, what do you think the real problems are?
Dr. Paul Henebury
I am Founder of Telos Ministries, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.
It strikes me that a central tenet of dispensationalism--a hermeneutic that is as literal as literarily plausible--is eminently defensible in true exegetical preaching. A great example is to note that when the Old Testament uses the word "Israel", then the original hearers/readers would have understood that to mean "Israel".
And regrettably, what I've too often seen as the alternative to "exegetical" is not a broad based "topical" sermon, but rather sermons where the text is more or less used as a springboard to discuss what the preacher really wanted to talk about.
It is also worth noting that sound exegetical sermons also bring in parallel passages, so that will also bring in the topic of what kind of hermeneutic one is using.
Or, put differently, I have only rarely heard pastors really delve into the intricacies of either dispensationalism or covenant theology in their sermons. I might joke that too much of the pulpit is devoted to messages which are not well suited for the lactose intolerant, except for that portion which constitutes theological soda pop--sweet, but nothing to it.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Ron Bean wrote: I should have said, " a generation that is used to preaching and teaching that is primarily from a single text and not used to preaching and teaching that jumps from one text to another." Secondly, they have a hard time imaging that pre-printing press preachers, in explaining pre-trib pre-mil eschatology would have been jumping from text to text to do so.
Preachers have been "jumping from text to text" from all time if they are going to thoroughly preach a doctrine. This is not just an eschatology thing, it is how you would do any systematic presentation of a major doctrine that is taught in scripture.
Until one exegetes several NT passages that quote the OT and interpret it in a non-literal manner. One example: Malachi's prophecy about the coming of Elijah. (Malachi 4:5,6) Is this Elijah the Tishbite returned to Earth? Literal exposition would think so. However, several NT passages tell us that John the Baptist fulfills this prophecy. There would be no way to know this if all we had was the OT. If we begin with the OT and read it literally, we could never discover the true identity of Malachi's Elijah. The additional revelation of the NT yields the divinely intended meaning. It is doubtful that any OT listener could have known this. It was a mystery until the NT was given.
Conclusion: It is incorrect to state that OT prophecies have to be understood the way the original hearers would have understood them. The NT corrects that assumption. It is also incorrect to insist the OT must be understood as literally as possible. The true meaning of the OT can only be properly understood in light of the NT. Until one is willing to adjust his hermeneutic to align with inspired NT interpretation, he will never be able to understand the true meaning.
G. N. Barkman
As the great theologian Augustine once said about Holy Scripture: “In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed.”
The true meaning of the OT can only be properly understood in light of the NT.
Putting aside the rest of the moment (though I don’t think Elijah is as big a deal as you seem to think), on what basis did God judge Israel? Was it not for disobedience to his Word? A Word that he believed was sufficient to justify belief and obedience with penalties for disobedience. Given your stance, could not Israel have said, “We didn’t understand because we didn’t have the NT.”
And how did Jesus condemn the Pharisees for not believing the OT before the NT was written? Jesus told them that they should have been able to read the NT and understand it. Yet you seem to be saying we cannot.
In light of the subject matter of this series I believe my seven issues above are not incidental. They are the main issues that are leading Dispensationalism in the wrong direction and that threaten its future, and they are never addressed. There is a malaise among Dispensationalists to tackle these kinds of issues. Meanwhile other systems (like CT) have far outpaced DT in these areas. One is hard-pressed even to find a decent definition of Dispensationalism.
I appreciate the response. In some ways, I think it is backwards. It seems to me (and I could be wrong) that you are looking for something out of a theological system that it should not be expected to bring. The system is to be built on the exegesis. We determine what the text says and then correlate that with other texts. So we should expect it to be very similar to other systems in many ways because across evangelical theology there is widespread agreement on key doctrines.
To me, the idea of a dispensational systematic is a little strange. I could see a dispensational eschatology or a dispensational ecclesiology. But there isn’t really a dispensational doctrine of God or man or sin or angels or Scripture. To call that “borrowing” seems strange to me. I can read Robert Reymond, and apart from the odd structure of Westminster, find a great deal to agree with. I can read Grudem and find a great deal to agree with. I am not borrowing from them to do so. The differences arise in correlating some key passages. I don’t find the hermeneutics or methodology particularly challenging or confusing. I find Reformed hermeneutics much more strange and inconsistent. Even here we have a brother arguing that we should do something but he can’t tell us what that something is because we don’t really know, as he says. And because we don’t know, we should be all the more careful to do it, even though we don’t know what it is we are doing. So again, while I think there are some difficult passages on both sides, I think the dispensationalist side answers the questions better as a whole and with more consistency of method. Dispensationalism has less special pleading.
I don’t understand the claim on the centrality of Christ. The lack of scholarly commentaries is explainable in many ways, perhaps most by the fact that a lot of the commentaries are written by graduates of certain types of schools and dispensationalism is not well-represented in those schools. They are also published by certain publishing houses and the market for technical dispensational commentaries is rather small I imagine. There is a type of, pardon the awkwardness, theological inbreeding. I had a professor at TEDS say that he didn’t know how a dispensationalist could preach the OT with integrity since he had already decided it didn’t apply. I had another homiletics professor agree with me on the meaning of a text but then say, “I don’t know how you preach that,” as if that was some reason to find another meaning. But again that begs the question of distinctiveness. A dispensational commentary is, in many respects, going to be indistinguishable from a Reformed commentary.
As for defining oneself by dispensations, I think that has been refuted since the 50s, unless I misunderstand your point. The idea of 7 dispensations was never inherent in the system. 7 was most common but there are other options.
Howbeit, what do you think the real problems are?
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it in this light on either side. On a lighter side, I am reminded of a comedian who once said that the problem with southerners and their accents is that we can’t get the dumbest of us to keep their mouths shut. I think dispensationalism perhaps suffers the same ailment … We just can’t get the dumbest of us to keep their mouths shut. So in dispensationalism, some attribute the statements of a dispensationalist to the system. Which is why you still have people who claim that dispensationalism teaches multiples ways of salvation. I had a professor at TEDS who said that in class about ten or twelve years ago. I was surprised. He should have known better because that was addressed in the 50s but he had no idea because he had never read Ryrie. But boy was he adamant about the issue. Until I pointed it out to him. But again, I think (with both sides) it is a lot easier to attack straw men or peripheral issues than to address substance. I recently saw a Reformed blog I read trying to critique dispensationalism and I thought it was very strange.
Again, I think there are some difficult passages, but again, no less so than the alternatives. I think a real problem is probably clarity in communication. I think Vlach is doing a lot of good work. I read a lot of responses to dispensationalism and shake my head wondering how someone considers that a refutation or a response. It reminds me of a recent conversation on C.S. Lewis. Someone was adamant that C.S. Lewis was evil and should be read by no Christian. I questioned this person on how much of Lewis they had read. They refused to answer the question. I think that was because they had not read Lewis; they had only read a few critiques of Lewis. They had no idea what Lewis believed or wrote or what his usefulness is. So I think a lot of people don’t understand dispensationalism (which goes back to previous comments above about clarity and inbreeding).
Even the charge made here that dispensationalists jump all over the Scriptures. How in that a charge against dispensationalism? It is done on both sides with all options and there is no inherent problem with it though it is often done poorly by both sides. But it takes a problem (a message with three points from three separate passages) and distributes it to a whole system while ignoring the reality that we are to correlate Scripture. So if Daniel talks about eschatology (and it does) and Revelation talks about eschatology (and it does) and 1 Thessalonians talks about eschatology (and it does), we might say it is theological malpractice to not correlate those passages, not to build a theology based on what they say together. We can’t have what Dr. McCune used to call “brush pile theology.”
So IMO, the goal of a systematic (and a system) is not to defend a position but to correlate the Scriptures. And we must with the Scriptures in their context.
If you made it this far, I clearly failed in trying to bore you enough to make you stop reading. But nonetheless, here are a few thoughts of whatever worth they might be.
And good thoughts they were too! You will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with you in the areas of method and system, and I think you misunderstand my concern regarding the definition of Dispensationalism. Just what is it? Is it a hermeneutic? If so, how do you get some of the dispensations from the hermeneutic (e.g., what is more prominent, the Abrahamic covenant or the dispensation of promise?) Is it a system? Then why does it only address eschatology & ecclesiology? Why subsume the biblical covenants, which are given prominence, beneath dispensations which are not given prominence?
Anyway, thanks for the interaction.
Dr. Paul Henebury
I am Founder of Telos Ministries, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.
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