What Dispensationalism

What is Dispensationalism

Excerpted from "Dispensationalism and the Everlasting Gospel"

Definition

What is dispensationalism? Dispensational means something that has to do with dispensations. The word dispensation means, "A specific arrangement or system by which something is dispensed." The word "dispensation" is found in the Bible. The English word "dispensation" is used four times in the New Testament, and comes from the Greek word oikonomia which means an "economy" or a household administration. It is used by Paul to refer to God's arrangement of redemption's plan. Dispensation in this sense is Biblical. The difference is when it becomes an "ism." What the word dispensation means within Dispensationalism is something different.

Dispensationalism is an elaborated system, promoting certain theological assumptions extraneous to the Bible. Dispensationalism, as an "ism," is a scheme for reading Scripture [Cp. "How Do We ‘Read' the Bible"]. It functions like stained glass letting in sunlight. It colors the light as it comes through and even bathes everything it shines on with the color of the glass. In like manner, many groups' interpretations of the plan of salvation are deeply colored by the stained glass of dispensationalism, as the light of Scripture is refracted through it. Historically: "Dispensationalism is a form of premillennialism originating among the Plymouth Brethren in the early 1830's." ["Dispensationalism: A Return to Biblical Theology or Pseudo Christian Cult?," Gospel Plow web site, http://www.frii.com/~gosplow/disp2.html]

It is a system of Bible interpretation, distinct from Scripture itself, that:

". . . builds on the idea of God's administration of or plan for the world describing the unfolding of that program in various dispensations, or stewardship arrangements, throughout the history of the world. The world is seen as a household administered by God in connection with several stages of revelation that mark off the different economies in the outworking of his total program." ["The New Millennium," Michael S. Horton, ©1994, 1998 Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Online, Accessed: 29 June 2001 at: http://www.alliancenet.org/pub/mr/mr94/1994.03.MayJun/mr9403.msh.NewMillennium.html]

The word dispensation means an "order of things regarded as established or controlled by God" (Oxford Dictionary, 4th edition, p.233). According to Walvoord it is a "stage in the progressive revelation of God constituting a distinctive stewardship or rule of life." Ryrie says it is a "distinguishable economy in the outworking of God's purpose." [Greg Herrick, "Dispensationalism and God’s Glory," Online. Accessed 7 June 2001 @ http://www.bible.org/docs/theology/dispen/glorydis.htm]

"According to premillennial dispensationalism the present dispensation, the Church, would end in judgment and the "historical kingdom of Christ on the earth [would] be established in a future millennium." [Randall J. Stephens, More Recovered: A Review of Recent Historical Literature on Evangelicalism in the Late Victorian Era, Quodlibet Online Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy, Winter 2001 Issue, p. 8, footnote 12, Accessed 18 June 2001 At: http://www.quodlibet.net/stephens-victorian.shtml]

Cyrus I. Scofield defines the idea of dispensations in this manner:

"These periods are marked off in Scripture by some change in God's method of dealing with mankind, in respect to two questions: of sin, and of man's responsibility. . . . Each of the dispensations may be regarded as a new test of the natural man, and each ends in judgment -- marking his utter failure in every dispensation." [Timothy Weber, "The Dispensationalist Era," Christian History, Issue 61: Vol. XVIII, No. 1, p. 34.]

Although early dispensationalism held to three dispensations, typical dispensationalism teaches seven dispensations, which are: 1) Innocence (before the Fall); 2) Conscience (Fall to the Flood) 3) Human Government (Noah to Abraham); 4) Promise (Abraham to Moses); 5) Law (Moses to Christ); 6) Grace (the church age), and 7) Kingdom, Millennial or Divine Government (the millennium).

"Dispensational theology centers upon the concept of God's dealings with mankind being divided into (usually) seven distinct economies or "dispensations", in which man is tested as to his obedience to the will of God as revealed under each dispensation." [Horton, "The New Millennium," Op. Cit.]

The key distinction of dispensationalism is the teaching that God has two plans at work in salvation history: one for Israel and one for the Church.

"What separated dispensationalists from everybody else was their novel method of biblical interpretation. Everything in the dispensationalist system seemed to rest on the conviction that God had two completely different plans operating in history: one for an earthly people, Israel, and the other for a heavenly people, the church." [Weber, Op. Cit.]

"The essence of dispensationalism, then, is the distinction between Israel and the Church. This grows out of the dispensationalists' consistent employment of normal or plain interpretation, and it reflects an understanding of the basic purpose of God in all His dealings with mankind as that of glorifying Himself through salvation and other purposes as well." [Keith A. Mathison, Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God?, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishers, 1995), pp. 4-8.]

"Dispensationalists see God as pursuing two distinct purposes throughout history, one related to an earthly goal and an earthly people (the Jews), the other to heavenly goals and a heavenly people (the church)." ["Dispensationalism: A Return to Biblical Theology or Pseudo Christian Cult?," Gospel Plow web site, http://www.frii.com/~gosplow/disp2.html]

This cannot be understated: the dispensational distinction between Israel and the Church creates serious implications for the nature of the Church and the Gospel itself. Since the Church is considered by dispensationalists to be a "parenthesis" in God's plan for Israel, dispensationalists say the promises to Israel in the Old Testament are not - cannot be - fulfilled in the Church. The Church came about because Israel rejected the Kingdom Christ offered to them. "God suspended his timetable for the Jews at the end of Daniel's sixty-ninth week and began building a new and heavenly people -- the church." [Weber, Op. Cit.]

"The church, according to Darby, did not come into existence until Pentecost. Even from the beginning it was never composed of "natural branches" (as were the Jews). Moreover, the church was not even revealed in the Old Testament. Israel had been an earthly kingdom with material promises and blessings. Christ came to fulfill the promises and ideals of that earthly kingdom but was rejected by His people. When that happened, God stopped the prophetic clock and instituted the church. Not until the rapture of the church will this clock start again, at which time God again will resume His purposes for His earthly people, Israel. Because the church, as the body of Christ, is heavenly, it must be raptured out of the earth in order that God's earthly program with Israel might be resumed." [Mark Sarver, "Dispensationalism: Part II - The Genesis and Development of Dispensationalism in Nineteenth-Century England," Online, Accessed: Sep 14, 2001, Available at: http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/full.asp?ID=654]

Thus, Christ went to the Cross to bring salvation to the Gentiles and create the Church. But, since God will not work with two peoples at once, He will not pick up His plan for Israel until after the Church is raptured. These beliefs: 1) that the prophecies for Israel are not fulfilled in the Church, 2) that the Church was a parenthesis in God's plan, 3) and that the Church must be removed in order for God to resume His plan for Israel, necessitated a new teaching (an uncommon teaching in the first 1800 years of Church history): that Christ's Second Coming will take place at two different times. The first is said to occur before the "Tribulation Period" (Daniel's 70th Week) when Christ returns in the air (for his saints) to catch the Church up into Heaven. God's program for the Jews then resumes with the Tribulation, Antichrist, bowls of wrath, 144,000 Jews preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and Armageddon. Then, after the Tribulation, Christ returns (with his saints) to set up His earthly Kingdom to rule Israel and the world.

It is extremely important to understand that the idea of the "rapture" as the first stage of Christ's Second Coming grew out of this issue of God having two plans for two different people (Israel and the Church). It came about over a debate about the place the Old Testament believers held in God's plan of salvation:

"It must be emphasized that the crux of the debates that took place over the rapture was a more fundamental issue: the relationship between Old and New Testament saints. Darby made a radical separation between the two groups of saints, positing that the church (Pentecost to rapture) has a special glory and that the Old Testament saints had an inferior relationship to God." [Saver, Op. cit.]

I will address the error of this split between the Old and New Testament believers later. What is necessary here is to realize that the division of God's plan into dispensations and, consequently, the claim of two separate plans for the Church and Israel are the key distinctives of
dispensationalism. It is these distinctions which I believe have undermined the teaching of the Gospel in many churches today.

The Impulses Behind Dispensationalism

In this section I have given a sketch of the beliefs which distinguish dispensational thought. This is not enough to understand the nature of dispensationalism. One must go deeper below the surface of ages schemes to see what drives it. The waters which fill the lakes come down on the mountains and highland. These waters pulled by the force of gravity, create streams and rivers which traverse various terrain, picking up sediment, which they deposit at their final destination. The same is true with ideas and beliefs. They come to us with a history. They start at one point in history, they are drawn down through time by the various people who adopt them, and they are shaped by the groups and historical context they through which they flow. Dispensationalism is the deposit of the flow of persisting ideas through certain groups over time. We must recognize this process in order to understand what is behind the modern teaching of dispensationalism.

What are the basic impulses or ideas which dispensationalism seeks to preserve? First, dispensationalism is an Millenarian movement. The impulse behind this is the future triumph of the Kingdom of God over the kingdoms of this world. This powerful force is behind dispensationalism. Those who are dispensationalist ardent look for the future triumph of the Christian Kingdom.. Key to this coming kingdom is the coming King, Jesus Christ. Thus, the Adventist impulse, is also behind dispensational thought. The Second Coming of Christ is integral to the Triumph of the Kingdom and the initiation of the Millennial reign of Christ. It is the third impetus that reveals the deeper currents from which dispensationalism draw their convictions. It assumes with other Restorationists that Jesus will not come until the Church is restored to the glory it possessed at the time of Jesus' Ascension. In fact, dispensationalist would say that Jesus cannot return until the Church is restored to its original state.

A more radical form of dispensationalism sees this restoration taking place in Church history through a sequence of stages in which the Church was progressive returned to its original condition. They would say that Luther and the Reformation brought justification by faith, then Wesley restored the doctrine of Holiness or Perfection, after this, the Pentecostals restored tongues, gifts and healing. Today, "third wave" Pentecostal/Charismatics would say that God has restored Apostles and Prophets. These are necessary for the Church to be restored, for Christ to come, and the for the Kingdom to finally triumph.