Dispensationalism

Read the series.

Although being cognizant of Fredrickson’s research regarding pre-19th century commentators on Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8 I think a selection of quotes from representative scholarship will help drive my point home. My point being that it is not some novel view that understands the “covenant” in these texts as being, in fact, Jesus Himself. Many may wish to avoid saying “Jesus is the New covenant.” But I think it hard to circumvent the claim that “Jesus is the embodiment of the New covenant.”

Read the series.

Read the series.

Let me repeat the conclusion I arrived at previously:

Jesus is the Redeemer who saves by the Spirit through the New covenant!

Read the series.

Let me begin with a statement that will have to be defended, but which I think is difficult to argue against:

Nowhere does the OT tell us that the New covenant is only intended for Israel.

Especially among Dispensationalists, the subject of the New covenant creates a bone of contention. Perhaps the majority Dispensationalists hold that the Church has no participatory relationship in the New covenant. Many others believe that the Church does participate in the trickle-down effects of the New covenant, which is still thought to be made with Israel as full parties. Then there are those, myself included, who believe that the Church is made a full party to the New covenant alongside of Israel.

For the sixth year in a row, I had the privilege of attending and exhibiting at the Shepherds 360 Church Leaders Conference, held at Shepherds Theological Seminary in Cary, N.C., on Monday through Wednesday of this week.

The theme of this year’s conference, which focused on dispensationalism, was “City of God—City of Man,” with the tagline: “Already? Not Yet? Let’s Get It Right!”

The 17^th Annual Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics will be held Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 18 and 19, at Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa. The theme for this year’s conference is, “Answering the Myths About Dispensationalism.”

What is Jesus saying at John 14:2-3? What is “my Father’s house?” Where is it? When will Jesus take believers there? In the last article, we examined the theory that it refers to being “up there” in heaven, and that Jesus takes believers there at an event called the pre-tribulational rapture. We concluded this idea isn’t supported by the text and gave it a “D” rating for probability. That doesn’t mean the pre-tribulation rapture is false—it just means to “see” it in John 14:2-3 you must smuggle it in from elsewhere.

In Part 2 of this series, we presented four options for understanding what Jesus meant at John 14:1-3:

We also suggested a grading scale for evaluating these options: