Observations from the back row of the 2010 Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics
The third Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics was held on September 22-23, 2010 at the Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA. There were approximately forty council members and nearly that many observers.
The council members present were not introduced to the observers although they did have nameplates at their tables. The council members sat at tables facing the speaker’s podium and the observers sat in (uncomfortable) chairs behind them. Casual observation revealed members (all male) from Faith Bible Baptist College and Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, Grace College and Seminary, Friends of Israel, Grace School of Theology, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary, Tyndale Theological Seminary, Western Seminary, The Master’s Seminary, Word of Life Bible Institute, the Pre-Trib Research Center, Shasta Bible College, College of Biblical Studies and of course the host seminary. Several pastors were also on the council.
The theme was “Dispensationalism, Language, and Scripture.” Over the two days, ten papers were presented. Each presenter had thirty minutes to read his paper, and an hour of discussion followed each. Attendees were each given CDs containing .pdf files of the presentations. No hard copies of the papers were distributed. As the presenters read each paper, the text was projected on a screen behind them.
Papers averaged about twenty-five pages in length. Some presenters had to skip sections to stay within the time limit. Although they realized the difficulty of controling information in our digital age, two of the presenters asked that their material not be widely disseminated because of soon to be published books containing the information. The materials from the previous council meetings are available online (http://www.bbc.edu/council/), and I assume this years’ will eventually be also.
Dr. Mike Stallard, Dean of the seminary and a member of the steering committee, moderated the meeting. Dr. Stallard also presented two papers and read a paper from Dr. Mal Couch, who could not attend for health reasons. Dr. Stallard also gave each of the attendees a copy of his recently published commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians. We were also given a CD containing files from the Barndollar Lecture Series, which occurred at the college the same week. The theme was the “History of the Doctrine of the Rapture,” and the speaker was Dr. Thomas Ice.
As I expected, this was a technical gathering. Most of the observers (excluding myself) had advanced degrees. Many had PhDs or were working on them. It is good for a pastor’s ego to occasionally be the dumbest guy in the room. Although some of the presentations and discussions were over my head, I enjoyed them and benefited from them. It was good to be exposed to the scholarly side of dispensationalism.
Faith is obeying when you can't even imagine how things might turn out right.
Greg Wilson
There will never be real consensus on the issue of the New Covenant. I do know that a book is in the works from a strictly classical dispensational perspective on three views of the NC…
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
Of course, depending upon where the New Covenant ends up, it just might open up a new round of cessationist debates. That should be fun.
Personally, I’m disappointed if they didn’t address this. I was really hoping they’d come up with something.
Faith is obeying when you can't even imagine how things might turn out right.
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
I don’t intend to debate an answer to these questions, but to maintain consistency, a dispensational system should have an answer. But that’s just my opinion. It doesn’t seem to bother too many other people.
Faith is obeying when you can't even imagine how things might turn out right.
Yes, there are several views that are accepted among traditional dispensationalists. My own view is that the church simply has no relation to the NC, although we do receive blessings similar to those that Israel will receive from the NC, and these are all based in the same source — the death of Christ.
It might be difficult to implement some type of “political” consensus among all professing dispensationalists, I agree, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it. My view is the same as Darby’s — so I think I am in the mainstream of historic dispensationalism.
(DTS really opened this can of worms back in the early decades of the 20th century with its two NC view — but that has long since passed from the scene.)
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
I don’t see how dispensationalism can be seen as a cohesive and contiguous system of theology and interpretation without a consensus on this point.In reality what we currently have in disp. is two or three options on how all the particulars of the NC relate to non Jews, the church, etc.
Though there is not agreement on all of those particulars, only one solution is needed to make a cohesive/self-consistent system. And we have several so… it’s covered.
(What I mean is, it’s kind of like having multiple alibis. The detective says where were you the night of Mr.X’s murder? I can answer that a receipt shows i was out of town, an eye witness says I was out of town, and a phone record says I was out of town. Some think the receipt is forged and others think the eye witness is a kook. Another claims someone else used my phone. But I have three alibis to work with… my chances for “reasonable doubt” are pretty good).
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
http://www.bbc.edu/council/documents/New_Covenant_CDH_08.pdf
It is apparently a revision of the paper presented at that council.
[A. Carpenter] If memory serves correctly, didn’t they agree last year that this year they would be working on coming to a dispensational consensus regarding the fulfillment of the New Covenant? Did they say anything about it?I believe that the issue of the New Covenant was the subject of discussion at the 2009 Council.
However, I would like to defend the position of the early dispensationalists when they taught that Christians do not partake of the New Covenant promised to the nation of Israel. In fact, according to Paul the fulfillment of that covenant remains in the future:
“And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Ro.11:26-27).
Let us look at the conditions which will prevail at the time when the “everlasting covenant” is in force:
“Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you…Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor” (Isa.55:3,5).
Certainly this does not describe what is happening at the present time.
[Aaron Blumer]…I’ll say it anyway.Well, I suppose this works if all you’re aiming for is a negative answer - so dispensationalists agree on what the NC isn’t. That’s barely helpful if you’re trying to understand what it is. I certainly need to do more reading on this, but it seems that each proposition has to arrange the other pieces of the system differently in order to make it work. And that must have hermeneutical ramifications, which, if taken through the exegetical spiral, may produce different results within the rest of the system. Different aspects are given different weight and priority, and I am curious as to what effect the fitting of the NC may have on the rest of the system.I don’t see how dispensationalism can be seen as a cohesive and contiguous system of theology and interpretation without a consensus on this point.In reality what we currently have in disp. is two or three options on how all the particulars of the NC relate to non Jews, the church, etc.
Though there is not agreement on all of those particulars, only one solution is needed to make a cohesive/self-consistent system. And we have several so… it’s covered.
(What I mean is, it’s kind of like having multiple alibis. The detective says where were you the night of Mr.X’s murder? I can answer that a receipt shows i was out of town, an eye witness says I was out of town, and a phone record says I was out of town. Some think the receipt is forged and others think the eye witness is a kook. Another claims someone else used my phone. But I have three alibis to work with… my chances for “reasonable doubt” are pretty good).
Let me put it this way - because the NC seems to be one of the more difficult questions of the system, it comes at the end of the process. I want to know what happens when you make it fit, and then go through the process again, applying whatever principles you used to allow it to fit the first time around. The fact that different dispensationalists come up with different proposals shows that they are using different hermeneutics at that point. Allow the NC to fit itself into the puzzle, and then use those hermeneutics throughout the system. My guess is that you will come up with different dispensationalisms.
Case in point - the position that sees absolutely no participation of the church in the NC. What hermeneutics are they using to arrive at that conclusion? Obviously they see an utter disconnect between Israel and the Church. So then, how do some dispensationalists, who also affirm the disconnect, see any participation? If you allow some participation and then work that hermeneutic through the whole system, will you come up with the same disconnect? I doubt it, and probably so do those dispensationalists who see no participation. Personally, I believe that no participation is consistent with the disconnect, but I’m not sure it’s consistent with Scripture, and so I begin to question the disconnect as I work it through the rest of the system.
I don’t think that it’s the same thing as having different alibis. If 3 people tell me you weren’t there but can’t agree on where you were, I’m going to start suspecting your witnesses.
Faith is obeying when you can't even imagine how things might turn out right.
[Jack Hampton]I see that now. Yes, you are right, they discussed that in 2009. (Apparently, I’m missing a year! Scary.) I look forward to reading their materials. Likely they will deal with some of the things I’ve been talking about here. Thank you for your patience.[A. Carpenter] If memory serves correctly, didn’t they agree last year that this year they would be working on coming to a dispensational consensus regarding the fulfillment of the New Covenant? Did they say anything about it?I believe that the issue of the New Covenant was the subject of discussion at the 2009 Council.
Faith is obeying when you can't even imagine how things might turn out right.
[A. Carpenter] Yes, you are right, they discussed that in 2009. (Apparently, I’m missing a year! Scary.) I look forward to reading their materials. Likely they will deal with some of the things I’ve been talking about here. Thank you for your patience.Here is a link which will take to all the papers presented at the 2009 Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics:
http://www.bbc.edu/council/related_materials.asp
One of those papers was presented by John Master and he made a very important observation about the text in the OT which relates to the New Covenant:
“The context of the text relates to corporate Israel and not simply to individuals per se. It is dealing with national transformation not simply individual regeneration”[emphasis added] (John Master, New Covenant Considerations, Sept., 2009; Presented at the 2009 Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics).
This is a fact that most people overlook. Individual Jews were being saved and having their sins forgiven before the Cross (Luke 7:48-50) even though it was to be the New Covenant promised to Israel which was to provide for a “forgiveness of sins” (Jer.31:34). Since individuals were receiving the forgiveness of sins prior to the ratification of the New Covenant it is obvious that the New Covenant applied to corporate Israel.
Rodney J. Decker writes that “the parties of the New Covenant are God and Israel. ‘I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah’ (Jer. 31:31). The promise speaks of one covenant and one people, even though the nation was divided and the Northern Kingdom was exiled at the time of this prophecy. The covenant anticipates a reunited and restored Israel as a national entity. This same theme is reiterated in verse 33: ‘they will be my people’ (singular). The covenant is not promised to any other group or nation. The Old Testament is unanimous in stating that the New Covenant will be made with Israel” [emphasis added] (Decker, “The Church’s Relationship to the New Covenant,” Bibliotheca Sacra 152 [July-September 1995]: p.294).
There is a lot more evidence that the New Covenant is corporate in nature.
Discussion