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.
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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.
[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.
Jeff Brown
If Jesus meant that the cup represents only the blood that he shed for Israel, shouldn’t we be instructing Christians that way? In fact, I have never heard this kind of instruction. Instead, I have heard the prayers of literally hundreds of Christians who have rejoiced that they can celebrate Jesus’ demonstration of his love for them through the cup. Of all historical explanations I have read about communion, I don’t recall any which made this kind of definition, namely, that when you partake of the bread and the cup, that you are celebrating for Israel in the future, but not for anything which has transpired in yourselves (I do not mean to say that I have read everything). Do you mean then, that nearly all Christians throughout history (not just those who celebrate the Mass) have never gotten the meaning of communion right? Are you saying that at communion, we need to tell Gentile believers: “You are not saved by the blood of any covenant?”
I would expect that if what you say is correct, that Paul would have made this plain to the believers in Corinth (who were not all Jewish). He certainly explained the theological meaning in 1 Corinthians 11. Yet he never says, this is about a covenant with Israel only, not with any Gentiles.
Truly, “Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers.” But one of the promises was that the Gentiles would believe and revere the same Messiah. Because of this, Paul says further in Romans 15, the Gentiles rejoice, praise the Lord, and hope in the Messiah. All of this, but Jesus the Messiah never talked about dying for them? And Jesus is neither a minister to you or to me, but only to Israelites in the future? James, using the LXX translation (or else Luke puts it in his mouth) says that the belief of Gentiles upon Jesus is to be expected on the basis of Amos 9:11-12. This is, indeed a promise to the fathers of Israel. In fact, Israel longed for the great day when the Gentiles would be converted.
Is Jesus not a minister to you and to me? If He is a minister only to Israel, what was he doing healing the daughter of the Phonecian woman, or the servant of the Roman centurian, or why did he cast demons out of the maniac of Gadara? Why did he feed a large crowd of 4000 that included gentiles? Does Mark 10:45 mean that Jesus only came to die for Israelites but says nothing about Jesus’ death for Gentiles? Does it then also mean, that Jesus only ministered to Israelites and thus this passage has no direct bearing on leadership in Gentile churches?
Well, obviously I did not discuss all of these things with my friend. We have not had enough time. So I am posing the questions I would otherwise pose to him — in response to what you have written.
Jeff Brown
Discussion