1
Getting
Dispensationalists and
Nondispensationalists
to Listen to Each Another

Numerous books have been written in an attempt to show that dispensationalism is either right or wrong. Those books have their place. The Bibliography has a sampling of them. In this book, however, I take a different approach , exploring ways that can be found to have profitable dialogue and to advance our understanding. I believe dialogue is possible in principle even between "hardline" representatives of dispensational theology and equally "hardline" representatives of its principal rival, covenantal theology. Until now, "hardline" representatives have been tempted to regard people in the opposite camp as unenlightened. The opposing views seem so absurd that it is easy to make fun of them or become angry and cease even to talk with people in the opposite camp. If you, dear reader, consider the opposite position absurd, let me assure you that people within that position consider your position equally absurd. In this book we attempt to shed light on this conflict.

Of course, in the dispute between dispensationalism and covenant theology, not everyone can be right. It might be that one position is right and the other wrong. It might also be that one position is mostly right, but has something to learn from a few points on which the other position has some valuable things to say. So it will be important to try to listen seriously to more than one point of view, in order to make sure that we have not missed something.

Suppose after our investigation we conclude that people in one camp are basically mistaken. That still does not mean that every aspect or concern of their theology is mistaken. Still less does it mean that we cannot learn from the people involved. People are important in other ways than simply as representatives of a theological "position." More is at stake than simply making up our minds. We ought also to struggle with the question of how best to communicate with those who disagree with us, and to sympathize with them where we genuinely can.

Now I am not a dispensationalist, in the classic sense of the term. But precisely for that reason, I find it appropriate to spend some time looking at dispensationalism in detail, and trying to understand the concerns of people who hold that position. I will not spend equal time looking at its rival, covenant theology. That would take another book. But we will look briefly at developments in covenantal theology in order to assess whether there are opportunities for rapprochement and growth in mutual understanding between these two competing positions.

In a word, we will be trying to understand other people, not just make up our minds. At the same time, we can never ignore the concern for truth. The questions raised by dispensationalism and covenant theology are important ones. We must all make decisions about what the Bible's teaching really is. That is one reason why people have sometimes written vigorous polemics and have sometimes become angry.

It would be exciting simply to leap into the middle of the discussion. But I would rather not assume too much knowledge on the part of my readers. Hence I will begin by surveying some of the past and present forms of dispensationalism (chapters 2-3). I will also note some moves recently made by covenant theologians bringing them closer to modified dispensationalism (chapter 4). Readers who are already quite familiar with the present state of affairs may wish to begin right away with Chapter 7, where the focus begins to be more on advancing the discussion beyond its present state.

Because both covenant theology and dispensationalism today include a spectrum of positions, not everything that I say applies to everyone. Many covenant theologians and modified dispensationalists have already adapted a good deal of the material in Chapters 11-13, but many can still profit, I hope, from a more thorough assimilation of the ideas in those chapters.

Now let us now begin by taking a look at dispensationalism in its historical origins and its present day forms. Dispensationalists are naturally interested in this, but nondispensationalists ought to be as well. For you who are not dispensationalists, I would ask you to try to understand sympathetically. Not to agree, but to understand. There is a unified approach to the Bible here, an approach that "makes sense" when viewed sympathetically "from inside," just as your own approach that makes sense" when viewed sympathetically "from inside."

The term "dispensationalist"

What do we mean by "dispensationalist"? The term is used by dispensationalists themselves in more than one way. Variations in its use have caused confusion. So, for the sake of clarity, let me introduce a new-fangled but completely neutral designation: D-theologians. By "D-theologians" I mean those people who, in addition to a generally evangelical theology, hold to the bulk of distinctives characteristic of the prophetic systems of J. N. Darby and C. I. Scofield. Representative D-theologians include Lewis Sperry Chafer, Arno C. Gaebelein, Charles C. Ryrie, Charles L. Feinberg, J. Dwight Pentecost, and John F. Walvoord. These people have, here and there, some significant theological differences. But, for most purposes any one of them might serve as a standard for the group. What these men have in common is primarily a particular view of the parallel-but-separate roles and destinies of Israel and the church. Along with this view goes a particular hermeneutical stance, in which careful separation is made between what is addressed to Israel and what is addressed to the church. What is addressed to Israel is "earthly" in character and is to be interpreted "literally."¹

Now, D-theologians have most often been called "dispensationalists." This is because the D-theologians divide the course of history into a number of distinct epochs. During each of these epochs God works out a particular phase of his over-all plan. Each epoch represents a "dispensation" or a particular phase in which there are distinctive ways in which God exerts his government over the world and tests human obedience and disobedience.

But the word "dispensationalist" is not really an apt term for labeling the D-theologians. Why not? Virtually all branches of the church, and all ages of the church, have believed that there are distinctive epochs or "dispensations" in God's government of the world--though sometimes the consciousness of such distinctions has grown dim. The recognition of distinctions between different epochs is by no means unique to D-theologians.

The problem is compounded by the fact that some D-theologians have used the word "dispensationalist" sometimes in a broad sense and sometimes in a narrow sense. In the broad sense it includes everyone who acknowledges that there are distinctive epochs in God's government of the world. Thus, according to Feinberg (1980, 69; quoted from Chafer 1951, 9):

(1) Any person is a dispensationalist who trusts the blood of Christ rather than bringing an animal sacrifice. (2) Any person is a dispensationalist who disclaims any right or title to the land which God covenanted to Israel for an everlasting inheritance. And (3) any person is a dispensationalist who observes the first day of the week rather than the seventh.

This is indeed a broad use of the term. On the other hand, at other points D-theologians use the term narrowly to describe only their own group, the people whom we have called D-theologians. For example, directly after Feinberg's quote above, he continues:

The validity of that [Chafer's] position is amply attested when the antidispensationalist Hamilton sets forth three dispensations in his scheme: (1) pre-Mosaic; (2) Mosaic; and (3) New Testament.

Hamilton is here called "antidispensationalist" even though he meets Chafer's broad criteria for being a "dispensationalist." Thus "antidispensationalist" is here being used in a narrow sense, with reference to opposition to D-theologians. Surely the shifting of terminology is unhelpful (see Fuller 1980, 10).

One of the effects of having two senses for the term is to engender some lack of precision or at least lack of clear communication in discussing church history. Some D-theologians have at times minimized the novelty of D-theology by pointing to the many points in church history where distinctions between epochs have been recognized (cf., e.g., Ryrie 1965, 65-74; Feinberg 1980, 67-82). For one thing, they have regarded all premillennialists as their predecessors. All premillennialists recognize that the millennium is an epoch distinct both from this age and the eternal state. And, generally speaking, they also recognize the widely held distinctions between pre-fall and post-fall situations, and between Old Testament and New Testament. Hence, all premillennialists believe in distinctive redemptive epochs or "dispensations." As such, they have been viewed as precursors to D-theologians. But, using such an idea of dispensations, we can range even further afield. For example, Arnold D. Ehlert includes Jonathan Edwards (and many others like him) in A Bibliographic History of Dispensationalism (1965). Now Edwards was a postmillennialist and a "covenant" theologian. By most he would be classified as inhabiting the camp diametrically opposed to D-theology. But he wrote a book on The History of Redemption showing particular sensitivity to the topic of redemptive epochs. On this basis he and many others have been included in the bibliography.

In reality, then, belief in dispensations (redemptive epochs or epochs in God's dominion) as such has very little to do with the distinctiveness of the characteristic forms of D-theologians (so Radmacher 1979, 163-64). Then why has the subject come up at all? Well, D-theologians do have some distinctive things to say about the content and meaning of particular dispensations, especially the dispensations of the church age and the millennium. The salient point is what the D-theologians say about these dispensations, not the fact that the dispensations exist.

Therefore, Ryrie's, Feinberg's, and Ehlert's observations about church history, though true, are largely beside the point. They do not constitute an answer to people who have argued that D-theology is a novelty in church history. Let us make an analogy. Suppose you had charged a group of people with teaching a novelty on the topic of sin. What would you think if, in reply, they showed the many similarities that their position had with the past on the topic of Christ's resurrection as a solution to sin? Something analogous to this has actually happened. Opponents charge that D-theology is novel in its basic tenet that Israel and the church have parallel-but-separate roles and destinies. Some D-theologians reply by pointing to the fact that the idea of dispensations is not novel.

I am ashamed that the discussions have not proceeded on a higher level. Come, my brothers who are D-theologians. Make a good case for the long history of the idea that Israel and the church have parallel-but-separate roles and destinies, if such a case can be made. Don't shift the ground in the discussion by maneuvering with the term "dispensationalist." If a historical case cannot be made, well then stand for the truth as something discovered relatively recently. You can still say that your truth was vaguely sensed in the age-long consciousness of the church, consciousness that it was not simply a straight-line continuation of Israel.

But let us return to the main point. The debate is not over whether there are dispensations. Of course there are. Nor is the debate over the number of dispensations. You can make as many as you wish by introducing finer distinctions. Hence, properly speaking, "dispensationalism" is an inaccurate and confusing label for the distinctiveness of D-theologians. But some terminology is needed to talk about the distinctiveness of D-theologians. For the sake of clarity, their distinctive theology might perhaps be called "Darbyism" (after its first proponent), "dual destinationism" (after one of its principal tenets concerning the separate destinies of Israel and the church), or "addressee bifurcationism" (after the principle of hermeneutical separation between meaning for Israel and significance for the church).² However, history has left us stuck with the term "dispensationalism" and "dispensationalist."

But even this is not the whole picture. Many contemporary dispensationalist scholars have now modified considerably the "classic" form of D-theology that we have described (see the further discussion in chapter 3). They do not hold that Israel and the church are two peoples of God with two parallel destinies. Nor do they practice hermeneutical separation between distinct addressees. However, they still wish to be called dispensationalists. They do so not only because their past training was in classic dispensationalism, but because they maintain that Israel still is a unique national and ethnic group in the sight of God (Rom 11:28-29). National Israel is still expected to enjoy the fulfillment of Abrahamic promises of the land in the millennial period. Moreover, they believe in common with classic dispensationalism that the rapture of the church out of the world will precede the great tribulation described in Matthew 24:21-31 and Revelation.

In our day, therefore, we are confronted with a complex spectrum of beliefs. No labeling system will capture everything. For the sake of convenience I propose to use the term "classic dispensationalism" to describe the theology of D-theologians, and "modified dispensationalism" for those who believe in a single people of God, but still wish to be called dispensationalists. But the boundary lines here are vague. There is a whole spectrum of possible positions bridging the gap between classic dispensationalism on the one side and nondispensational premillennialism on the other side.

The historical form of the Bible

Next, we should appreciate one of the big questions that dispensationalists are trying to answer. Everyone must reckon with the historical form of the Bible. It was written over the course of a number of centuries. Not all of it applies to us or speaks to us in the same way. How do we now appreciate the sacrificial system of Leviticus? How do we understand our relation to the temple at Jerusalem and the Old Testament kings? These things have now passed away. A decisive transition took place in the death and resurrection of Christ. Why? What kind of transition was this?

Moreover, a transition of a less dramatic kind already began in the events narrated in the Gospels. John the Baptist announces, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matt 3:2). A crisis came at the time of John's appearing. What sort of change of God's relation to Israel and to all men does this involve? No serious reader of the Bible can avoid these questions for long. And they are difficult questions, because they involve appreciating both elements of continuity and discontinuity. There is only one God and one way of salvation (continuity). But the coming of Christ involves a break with the past, disruption and alteration of existing forms (discontinuity).

Ethical questions also arise. If some elements in the Bible do not bear directly on us, what do we take as our ethical norms? How far are commands and patterns of behavior in the Old Testament, in the Gospels, or in Acts valid for us? What commands are still binding? How far do we imitate examples in the Bible? If some things are not to be practiced, how do we avoid rejecting everything?

These questions are made more difficult whenever Christian theology de-emphasizes history. Dispensational distinctives arose for the first time in the nineteenth century. They arose in a time when much orthodox theology, and particularly systematic theology, did not bring to the fore enough the historical and progressive character of biblical revelation. Systematic theology is concerned with what the Bible as a whole says on any particular topic. But in this concern for looking at the message of the whole Bible, in its unity, it may neglect the diversity and dynamic character of God's word coming to different ages and epochs. Dispensationalism arose partly in an endeavor to deal with those differences and diversities in epochs. It endeavored to bring into a coherent, intelligible relationship differences which might otherwise seem to be tensions or even contradictions within the word of God itself.

Others have told the story of the development of dispensationalism more thoroughly than I can (see Fuller 1957, Bass 1960, Dollar 1973, Marsden 1980). It is not necessary to rehearse their accounts. But we should note two other concerns to which dispensationalism responded even at the beginning. Dispensationalism arose as an affirmation of the purity of salvation by grace, and as a renewal of fervent expectation for the second coming of Christ. These concerns are both evident in a powerful way in the life of John Darby, the first proponent of the most salient distinctives of dispensationalism. Thus Darby is important, not merely as a founder of dispensationalism, but as a representative of some of the elements which continue to be strong concerns of dispensationalists to this day.

John Nelson Darby (1800-82)

Darby's life manifests a dual concern for purity in his own personal life and purity in the life of the church as a community. A decisive transition, a "deliverance," occurred in his personal life during a time of incapacitation because of a leg injury. Darby describes this in a letter ([n.d.] 1971, 3:298; quoted by Fuller 1957, 37-38; 1980, 14):

During my solitude, conflicting thoughts increased; but much exercise of soul had the effect of causing the scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me. I had always owned them to be the word of God.

When I came to understand that I was united to Christ in heaven [Eph 2:6], and that, consequently, my place before God was represented by His own, I was forced to the conclusion that it was no longer a question with God of this wretched "I" which had wearied me during six or seven years, in presence of the requirements of the law.

Darby thus came to appreciate much more deeply the grace of God to sinners, and the sufficiency of the work of Christ as the foundation for our assurance and peace with God. A person may well be shaken to the roots by such an experience. Darby had obtained the true purity, the true righteousness, not that which comes from the law (Phil 3:9).

In close connection with this, Darby's view of the church and of corporate purity also underwent a transformation. In the next sentence of the same letter, Darby continues ([n.d.] 1971, 3:298; quoted by Fuller 1957, 38):

It then became clear to me that the church of God, as He considers it, was composed only of those who were so united to Christ [Eph 2:6], whereas Christendom, as seen externally, was really the world, and could not be considered as "the church," ....

As the back side of his appreciation of the exalted character of Christ and of union with Christ, Darby came to a very negative evaluation of the visible church of his day. There was some justification for his conclusion. James Grant (1875, 5; quoted in Bass 1960, 73) indicates the low and unspiritual character of the church life of Darby's day:

Men's minds were much unsettled on religious subjects, and many of the best men in the Church of England had left, and were leaving it, because of the all but total absence of spiritual life, blended with no small amount of unsound teaching, in it. The result was, that many spiritually minded people ... were in a condition to embrace doctrines and principles of Church government, which they considered to be more spiritual than were those which were then in the ascendency in the Establishment.

Darby built his view of the church directly on his Christology, and there was a great appeal and attractiveness to it. The true church, united to Christ, is heavenly. It has nothing to do with the existing state of earthly corruption.

Darby joined a church renewal movement, later called the Plymouth Brethern, that had a desire for purification similar to his own. He soon became one of its principal leaders. His contribution may have started with a zeal for Christ. But it ended with an indiscriminate rejection of everyone out of conformity with Darby's ideas:

He [God] has told us when the church was become utterly corrupt, as He declared it would do, we were to turn away from all this corruption and those who were in it, and turn to the scriptures.... (Darby [n.d.] 1962, 20:240-41 [Ecclesiastical Writings, no. 4, "God, Not the Church ..."]; quoted by Bass 1960, 106.)

From there, Darby ended up saying that only the Brethren meet in Christ's name (Bass 1960, 108-109). Restoration of the corrupt church is impossible because the dispensation is running down (Bass 1960, 106). Excommunication operated against some Plymouth Brethren who disagreed with Darby.

Darby's distinctive ideas in eschatology appear to have originated from his understanding of union with Christ, as did his views of the church. He says ([n.d.] 1971, 3:299; quoted by Fuller 1957, 39):

The consciousness of my union with Christ had given me the present heavenly portion of the glory, whereas this chapter [Isaiah 32] clearly sets forth the corresponding earthly part.

Both the heavenly character of Christ, and the reality of salvation by grace apart from the works of the law, made Darby feel an overwhelming distance between his own situation of union with Christ and the situation of Israel discussed in Isaiah 32. Israel and the church are as different as heaven and earth, law and grace. It is a powerful appeal, is it not? Of course both Darby and present-day dispensationalists would emphasize that they intend to build their doctrines on the Bible, not merely on a theological inference. But this is compatible with saying that the theological inference has a valuable confirmatory influence. Though present-day dispensationalists may differ from Darby here and there, the same appeal remains among them to this day.

Unfortunately, Darby did not realize that the distance and difference he perceived could be interpreted in more than one way. Darby construed the difference as primarily a "vertical," static distinction, between heaven and earth, and between two peoples inhabiting the two realms. He did not entertain the possibility that the difference was primarily a historical one, a "horizontal" one, between the language of promise, couched in earthly typological terms, and the language of fulfillment, couched in terms of final reality, the reality of God's presence, the coming of heaven to human beings in Jesus Christ. Darby was reacting against a dehistoricized understanding of the Bible, an understanding that had little appreciation for the differences between redemptive epochs. But, in my judgment, Darby did not wholly escape from the problematics that he reacted against. He still did not reckon enough with the magnitude of the changes involved in the historical progression from promise to fulfillment. Hence he was forced into an untenable "vertical" dualism between the parallel destinies of two parallel peoples of God. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. What is important to notice at this point is the desire of Darby to do full justice to a difference that he saw, a difference that is actually there in the Bible. He wanted to do justice to the importance of Eph 2:6 for eschatology and our understanding of Israel.

Out of Darby's understanding of Ephesians 2 (and other passages) arose a rigid distinction between the church and Israel. The church is heavenly, Israel earthly. Darby says ([n.d.] 1962, 2:373 ["The Hopes of the Church of God ...," 11th lecture, old ed. p. 567]; quoted in Bass 1960, 130):

This great combat [of Christ and Satan] may take place either for the earthly things ... and then it is in the Jews; or for the church ... and then it is in the heavenly places.

From this follows a dichotomous approach to interpretation, to hermeneutics. Darby says ([n.d.] 1962, 2:35 ["On 'Days' Signifying 'Years' ...," old ed. pp. 53-54]; quoted in Bass 1960, 129):

First, in prophecy, when the Jewish church or nation (exclusive of the Gentile parenthesis in their history) is concerned, i.e., when the address is directed to the Jews, there we may look for a plain and direct testimony, because earthly things were the Jews proper portion. And, on the contrary, where the address is to the Gentiles, i.e., when the Gentiles are concerned in it, there we may look for symbol, because earthly things were not their portion, and the system of revelation must to them be symbolical. When therefore facts are addressed to the Jewish church as a subsisting body, as to what concerns themselves, I look for a plain, common sense, literal statement, as to a people with whom God had direct dealing upon earth, ...

One final quote may illustrate the close connection in Darby's mind between Christology, concern for purity in the church, and the hermeneutical bifurcation.

Prophecy applies itself properly to the earth; its object is not heaven. It was about things that were to happen on the earth; and the not seeing this has misled the church. We have thought that we ourselves had within us the accomplishment of these earthly blessings, whereas we are called to enjoy heavenly blessings. The privilege of the church is to have its portion in the heavenly places; and later blessings will be shed forth upon the earthly people. The church is something altogether apart--a kind of heavenly economy, during the rejection of the earthly people, who are put aside on account of their sins, and driven out among the nations, out of the midst of which nations God chooses a people for the enjoyment of heavenly glory with Jesus Himself. The Lord, having been rejected by the Jewish people, is become wholly a heavenly person. This is the doctrine which we peculiarly find in the writings of the apostle Paul. It is no longer the Messiah of the Jews, but a Christ exalted, glorified; and it is for want of taking hold of this exhilarating truth, that the church has become so weak. (Darby [n.d.] 1962, 2:376 ["The Hopes of the Church of God ...," 11th lecture, old ed. pp. 571-72]; quoted in Fuller 1957, 45.)

In Darby, then, we see bound up with one another (a) a sharp distinction between law and grace; (b) the sharp vertical distinction between "earthly" and "heavenly" peoples of God, Israel and the church; (c) a principle of "literal" interpretation of prophecy tying fulfillment up with the earthly level, the Jews; (d) a consequent strong premillennial emphasis looking forward to the time of this fulfillment; (e) a negative, separatist evaluation of the existing institutional church. The premillennial emphasis (d) was the main point of entrance through which Darby's distinctives gained ground in the United States. But all the other emphases except (e), the separatist emphasis, sooned characterized American dispensationalism. The separatist emphasis gained ground in the United States only later, around 1920-30, as fundamentalism lost hope of controlling the mainstream of American denominations (see Marsden 1980).