3
VARIATIONS OF
DISPENSATIONALISM

For both John N. Darby and C. I. Scofield, the interpretation of law and prophecy--virtually the whole Old Testament--had a key role in the dispensational system. Law, such as occurs in the Sermon on the Mount, cannot directly bear on the Christian, lest the truth of salvation by grace be compromised. Prophecy is to be read in terms of literal fulfillment in a future earthly Israel, not in the church. These still remain key factors in the approach of some dispensationalists. But it must not be imagined that everyone's approach to OT law and prophecy is exactly the same.

7. Use of the OT in present-day applications

For one thing, I believe that it is important to recognize a distinction between different dispensationalist practices in the application of the Bible to people's lives. Many modern contemporary dispensationalists read the Bible as a book that speaks directly to themselves. They read prophetic promises (e.g., Isa 65:24, Jer 31:12-13, Ezek 34:24-31, Joel 2:23, Micah 4:9-10) as applicable to themselves. They apply the Sermon on the Mount to themselves. They do this even if they believe that the "primary" reference of such prophecies and commands is to the millennium. Included in this group are many classic dispensationalists as well as those who have significantly modified dispensational theology in some way.

But there is also some dispensationalists who refuse to do this. They engage in "rightly dividing the word of truth."¹ That is, they carefully separate the parts of the Bible that address the different dispensations. People following this route learn that the Sermon on the Mount is "legal ground" (cf. Scofield's note on Matt 6:12). It is kingdom ethics, not ethics for the Christian. Christians are not supposed to pray the Lord's prayer (Matt 6:9-13), or use it as a model, because of the supposed antithesis to grace in 6:12. Let use call these dispensationalists "hardline" dispensationalists. The opposite group we may call "applicatory" dispensationalists, because they regularly make applications of the OT to Christians. We will find some classic dispensationalists in both these groups.

Some "hardline" dispensationalists hold to such principles without even qualifying them to the degree that Scofield does in the note on Matt 5:2. (Scofield speaks of "a beautiful moral application to the Christian" after he has made his main point about the fact that Matthew 5-7 refers to the millennial kingdom.) Moreover, when hardline dispensationalists read prophecy, they "divide" that which is millennial from that which is fulfilled in the first Coming. Through that process, without always realizing it, they carefully refrain from applying almost anything to themselves as members of the church.

Of course, the differences among dispensationalists in the application of the Bible to themselves are a matter of degree. One can apply to oneself a greater or lesser number of passages to a greater or lesser degree. Nevertheless, I believe that the distinction I am making is a useful one. It is useful because it helps us to evaluate more accurately how serious the differences are.

Both dispensationalists and nondispensationalists think that the other side is in error. Not both can be right about everything. But how serious an error is this? How much damage does it do to the church? In terms of the practical effects on the church, applicatory dispensationalists and most nondispensationalists are closer to one another than either are to hardline dispensationalists.

Let us see how this works. Consider first the applicatory dispensationalists and nondispensationalists together. One of these two groups has some erroneous ideas about the details of eschatological events. This is bound to affect their lives to a certain extent. All Christians are called on to live their everyday lives in the light of their hope for Christ's Coming. And our hopes are always colored to some degree by the detailed pictures that we have in our minds. Nevertheless, the details do not have much effect in comparison with the central hope, which we all share. Many of the details are just details sitting on the shelf, without much effect one way or the other on our lives. If they are proved wrong when the events actually take place, it is no great tragedy. If there is a problem here, it is less with the detailed eschatological views than with erroneous practical conclusions drawn from them. For instance, people who believe that the political state of Israel will be vindicated in the tribulation period may erroneously conclude that their own government should now side with the Israeli state in all circumstances. Or, because they believe that the coming of the Lord is near, they may abandon their normal occupations, somewhat like some of the Thessalonians did (2 Thess 3:6-13). But these are abuses which mature dispensationalists and nondispensationalists alike abhor.

Now consider the hardline dispensationalists, those who do not apply large sections of the Bible to themselves. If they are wrong, the damage they are doing is very serious. They are depriving themselves of the nourishment that Christians ought to receive from many portions of the Bible. When they are in positions of prominence, they damage others also. They are distancing themselves from promises and commands that they ought to take seriously. They are undercutting the ability of the word of God to come home to people's lives as God intended. Now, to be sure, not all of the promises and the commands in various parts of the Bible do apply to us in exactly the same way that they applied to the original hearers. Many times we must wrestle with the question of how the word of God comes to bear on us. But simply to eliminate that bearing is to short-circuit the process. It is the lazy way out.

What can we learn from this variation within dispensationalism? Those of us who are not dispensationalists can learn not to condemn or react against dispensationalists indiscriminately. Some dispensationalists are much closer to us spiritually than are others. Some are teaching destructively, others are not. Particularly when we pay attention to the practical pay-offs of dispensationalists' teachings, and the way in which they are nourished by the Bible, we must recognize that matters are complex. Some dispensationalists are doing many good things. The differences that remain may, in practice, be more minor than what they look like in theory.

For those of us who are applicatory dispensationalists, it is important to deal with this major difference in practice among dispensationalists. Applicatory dispensationalists are, I believe, already doing a good job in applying OT prophecy practically and pastorally. But they need to help others out of errors here. And applicatory dispensationalists should recognize that some nondispensationalists are closer to them in their practical use of the Bible than are the hardline dispensationalists.

8. Some developments beyond Scofield

Some interesting developments have occurred among dispensationalists taking us significantly beyond the views of Scofield himself. The New Scofield Reference Bible stands substantially in the tradition of Scofield. But in a few respects, at least, some "sharp edges" of Scofield have been removed. For example, the notes on Gen 15:18 and Matt 5:2 setting forth the twofold interpretation of Abrahamic promise and kingdom law have disappeared. But the twofold approach to Acts 2:17 remains, and is possibly even strengthened in the new edition. The new edition adds material at Gen 1:28 stressing that there is only one way of salvation: salvation is in Christ, by grace, through faith. The same editorial note also stresses the cumulative character of revelation. The dispensations, of course, are still there, but they are seen as adding to earlier works of God rather than simply superseding them. Both of these emphases are welcome over against earlier extreme positions that were sometimes taken (see Fuller 1980, 18-46).

In addition to this, there is an important development of a more informal kind. I see increasing willingness among some leading dispensationalists to speak at least of secondary applications or even fulfillments of some Old Testament prophecy in the church. Many would say that NT believers participate in fulfillment by virtue of their union with Christ, the true seed of Abraham. Remember that Scofield altogether rejected this type of move in his general statement about the "absolute literalness" of Old Testament prophecy (Scofield 1907, 45-46). But that left Scofield with an extremely uncomfortable tension between his hermeneutical principle and some of his practice, which allowed a spiritual, churchly dimension to the promise to Abraham, to the Joel prophecy, and to Matthew's kingdom ethics. Moreover, the insistence on literalness alone in prophecy grated against Scofield's willingness to see allegorical elements in Old Testament history. Why was a sort of extra dimension allowed for history (which on the surface contained fewer figurative elements) and disallowed for prophecy (which on the surface contained more figurative elements)? It was inevitable that some of Scofield's successors would try to remove the stark and artificial-sounding dichotomy that Scofield had placed between history and prophecy.

The way to do this is simple. One adds to Scofield the possibility that prophecy may, here and there, have an extra dimension of meaning, parallel to the extra dimension found in OT history. What sort of extra dimension is this? For history, one preserves the genuine historical value of the account, while adding to it, in some cases, a typological dimension pointing to Christ and the church. For prophecy, one preserves the literal fulfillment in the millennial kingdom of Israel, while adding to it, in some cases, a dimension of spiritual application pointing to Christ and the church. Some would go even further and speak of the church's participation in fulfillment.

For example the dispensationalist Tan, though quite careful to insist on completely "literal" fulfillments of prophecy, is quite willing to acknowledge an area of application to the church. He speaks (1974, 180) of "present foreshadowings" of the fulfillment:

It is possible of course to see present foreshadowings of certain yet-future prophecies and to make applications to the Christian church. But we are here in the area of "expanded typology." Premillennial interpreters may see a lot of types in Old Testament events and institutions, but they see them as applications and foreshadowments--not as actual fulfillments.

Scofield had, of course, recognized the existence of typology and even "allegory" in OT historical accounts. But, on the level of principle, he refused to do this in the area of prophecy. Tan has no such reservation.

But Tan careful to preserve an important distinction in his terminology. He consistently uses the word "fulfillment" to designate the coming to pass of predictions in their most literal form (most often, millennial fulfillment is in view). "Foreshadowing" and "application" are preferred terms for the way in which prophecies may relate to the church. But other dispensational interpreters go even further. Erich Sauer (1954, 162-78) is willing to speak of the possibility of fourfold fulfillment of many OT prophecies. They are fulfilled in a preliminary way in the restoration from Babylon, and then further (spiritually) in the church age. They are fulfilled literally in the millennium. And they find a further fulfillment in the consummation (the eternal state following the millennium).

Sauer is explicit about what he is doing. But one might wonder whether many others leave the door open for a similar point of view by postulating the possibility of multiple fulfillments. Irving Jensen (1981, 132) speaks for much popular dispensationalism when he opines,

Often one prophecy had a multiple application--for example, a prophecy of tribulation for Israel could refer to Babylonian captivity as well as the Tribulation in the end times.

. . . A prophet predicted events one after another (mountain peak after mountain peak), as though no centuries of time intervened between them. Such intervening events were not revealed to him.

The idea of multiple application easily arises as one attempts to deal with the obvious parallels between OT prophecies and some of the events associated with the first and second comings of Christ. Moreover, the examples in which the New Testament applies the Old Testament to Christians open the way for recognition that the church and Christians are often one important point of application. Suppose, now, that dispensationalists come to OT prophecies with an expectation that the prophecies will frequently have multiple applications. As Christian preachers, because of their audience and their location in history, they have a special obligation to pay attention to any applications to the church. Of course, they will do well to investigate in a preliminary way what the ultimate fulfillment is and what are applications to people in situations other than their own. But if they have a pastoral heart, they will devote much effort and time to the question of present-day application. As they do this, their own approach to prophetic interpretation will draw closer to that of nondispensationalists.