Bible, Theology & Philosophy

The entire “Now About Those Differences” series is available here.

Sinister et Dexter

The best and most accurate body of manuscripts underlying the New Testament is the Textus Receptus. This then supports the King James Version for which I unashamedly stand and from which I exclusively study and preach.

—Evangelist Dwight Smith

The Masoretic Text of the Old Testament and the Received Text of the New Testament (Textus Receptus) are those texts of the original languages we accept and use; the King James Version of the Bible is the only English version we accept and use.

—Temple Baptist Church and Crown College, Knoxville, Tennessee

At first glance, the present essay will appear to be a digression from the conversation about fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals—and a lengthy digression at that. It is not. It is rather an attempt at recognizing that, when the principles of Christian fellowship and separation are applied consistently, they affect our relationship with professing fundamentalists as well as our relationship with other evangelicals. To illustrate this point, let me begin with a personal anecdote.

Not long ago, I was paging through my copy of Voice magazine. The issue theme was “measuring church maturity,” and I wanted to see what the issue’s writers had to say on the topic. For whatever reason, church maturity didn’t suggest the idea of “ethics” to my mind. So I was surprised to see Ken Bickel’s article calling for renewed emphasis on pastoral ethics (posted here yesterday), and even more surprised to find two pages devoted to a two-part ethical standard for IFCA members.

I am not an IFCA member, and—believe it nor not—they haven’t hired me to recruit for them! But I have a lot of respect for these guys. I offer the ethical standard below as an example of the idea of a standard of ethics—an idea that more fundamentalist organizations should seriously consider, and an idea more fundamentalist pastors should seriously consider as well (present company included).

First appeared at SharperIron on June 11, 2005. Original post and discussion are available here. Read Part 1.

Republished with permission from Dr. Reluctant. In this series, Dr. Henebury responds to a collection of criticisms of dispensationalism entitled “95 Theses against Dispensationalism” written by a group called “The Nicene Council.” Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Thesis 31

Despite the dispensationalists’ strong commitment to the “plain interpretation” of Scripture (Charles Ryrie) and its dependence on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks as “of major importance to premillennialism” (John Walvoord), they have to insert into the otherwise chronological progress of the singular period of “Seventy Weeks” (Dan 9:24) a gap in order to make their system work; and that gap is already four times longer than the whole Seventy Weeks (490 year) period.

Response

The 70 Weeks prophecy is not at all unusual in containing a long time-gap between one aspect of its fulfillment and its final consummation. As with so many other OT prophetic passages, one often finds predictions of the first and second advents sandwiched together without any apparent time lapse. An example is Micah 5:2:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.

Nobody doubts the literal truth of this prophecy when it speaks about (a) the place of Messiah’s birth, or, (b) the pre-existence of Messiah. But there is a hermeneutical decision that has to be made about the prediction regarding, “the one to be Ruler in Israel.” Those who prefer what might be called the “selective-allegorical” approach will say that Christ is now ruling spiritually over the Church, the “New spiritual Israel.” Dispensationalists will look for a more literal interpretation of this part of the prophecy in line with the two other parts. They are encouraged to do this because this is not the only prophecy of an actual Messianic Rule over ethnic Israel; a prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled (cf. Isa. 9:6-7; Jer. 33:14-17; Lk. 1:31-33).