The Last Days of Dispensationalism

A Scholarly Critique of Popular Misconceptions

Donaldson

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781498272544
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

How we understand God's future purposes for the world must shape, to a significant degree, how Christians live life in the present. The decades since the publication of Hal Lindsey's, The Late Great Planet Earth, have seen a great deal of end-times speculation. Signs of the end-time apocalypse occurring soon have been heralded across our radios, televisions, the internet, and through written forms of media, urging people to either be ready for the rapture or be left behind to endure the horrific suffering of the tribulation as God's end-time program unfolds. Is this really what the Bible teaches about the purposes of the God of whom our Bible declares so loved the world that he gave his only son in order that all things be reconciled. The Last Days of Dispensationalism carefully examines this popular understanding known to us as dispensationalism and urges us to think again and to see within the Bible's grand salvation narrative and in the person of Jesus Christ a better message of redemptive hope for the future and a greater sense of meaning and purpose for the present.

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The Hermeneutics of Dispensational Premillennialism: A Critique

When discussing the dispensational premillennial system of eschatology with those who hold to this viewpoint it immediately becomes apparent that it is difficult to persuade them to a change of view. Vern Poythress emphatically notes that this “is not at all easy.”1 I have experienced Poythress’s point firsthand many times, and I can agree with him when he writes that “nearly all the problems associated with the dispensationalist/non-dispensationalist conflict are buried beneath the question of literal interpretation.”2 Discussions concerning various points of difference in understanding without first considering the interpretive principles employed by adherents of the differing viewpoints will only see the disputants and their discussions going around in circles. For any conversation between dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists to be of value we must first attend to the all-important issue of hermeneutics as it relates to eschatological thought.3

For that reason, after giving a brief overview of dispensational premillennialism, the purpose of this first chapter is to identify the hermeneutical principles of the dispensational system, to examine these in order to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and then to make some conclusions as to their value in forming a biblically sound eschatological understanding. My focus is primarily on the traditional, early, or normative dispensationalism of Scofield, Ryrie, Walvoord, and others, for two reasons. First, any later developments or modifications in contemporary dispensational thought stem from this form. Second, these relatively recent and significant developments in dispensational scholarly circles (e.g., the progressive dispensationalism of Blaising and Bock) appear to have not yet reached or impacted the understanding of people at a local level of the church; the tenets of traditional dispensationalism continue to lie behind and inform the assumptions and beliefs of many Christian people.

This examination of dispensational hermeneutics will be limited in scope by making primary use of Charles C. Ryrie’s Dispensationalism (published in 1995)—a revised and expanded version of his 1965 Dispensationalism Today. His view appears to be representative of the understanding of most normative dispensational thinkers.4

Overview of Dispensational Premillennialism

A Brief Historical Overview

Premillennialism, vis-à-vis dispensational premillennialism, has been on the theological landscape since the early days of the Christian church, with second-century church fathers such as Papias and Justin Martyr believing in a premillennial return of Christ, that is, prior to the millennium—the thousand-year period mentioned only in Revelation 20.5 While this is true, Alan Boyd discovered when researching Ryrie’s claims to the historical longevity of dispensational thought—by appealing to the longer historicity of premillennialism—that the dominant understanding of the early church was more analogous to what is now known as amillennialism.6 Boyd concluded his master’s thesis on this research by stating, “It is the conclusion of this thesis that Dr. Ryrie’s statement [premillennialism is the historic faith of the church] is historically invalid within the chronological framework of this [Boyd’s] thesis.”7 Papias and Justin Martyr, while holding to a premillennial return of Christ, should not be referred to as dispensational premillennialists; this designation is to be reserved for those holding to the much later and very different premillennial system of thought formulated by Darby in the nineteenth century. Philip Mauro states that

The entire system of dispensational thinking . . . a system of doctrine that contradicts what has been held and taught by every Christian expositor from the beginning of the Christian era . . . suddenly made its appearance in the latter part of the nineteenth century.8

While this nineteenth-century development of dispensationalism is widely accepted, scholars such as Ryrie have sought to provide evidence of a longer history for dispensationalism by appealing also to the undeniable historicity of dispensational-like concepts espoused by others prior to Darby, who recognized that God has managed his dealings with the world in different ways in different eras—the broad meaning of the term “dispensation.”9 This appeal is misleading, however, as all systems of eschatological thought recognize this understanding of dispensations to one degree or another. Covenant theology, the primary rival of dispensationalism, recognizes at least two economies by which God has administered his world,10 that is, the covenants of works and grace. Therefore, while crucial to Darby’s system, dispensations are not, nor are they capable of being, the defining characteristic of the dispensational system due to this loose commonality with other views and because of disagreement within dispensational scholarship as to how many dispensations there are.11 This inconsistency within dispensationalism is remarkable in light of Ryrie’s insistence that dispensational theology recognizes “definite and distinguishable” distinctions.12 This raises the question: How can the dispensations be distinguishable and at the same time indistinguishable to the point of there being a multiplicity of views within dispensational scholarship regarding their number? It seems these definite and distinguishable dispensations must be in reality indefinite and indistinguishable.13 This inconsistency does, however, raise some concerns as regards to the hermeneutical processes adopted by dispensationalist interpreters.

Ryrie admits, as he must, that “a person can believe in dispensations . . . without being a dispensationalist.”14 In fact, it is true that one can recognize dispensations and hold to a premillennial return of Christ and not be a dispensational premillennialist—the term therefore does not accurately reflect the sine qua non of the system known by that name.15 Ironically, the foundational tenets of dispensational premillennialism, as derived from and including the system’s hermeneutical principle, reside apart from it being dispensational and premillennial. It is these foundational tenets that make Darby’s dispensationalism both a unique and a somewhat recent development in eschatological thought: uniqueness and recentness being further reasons to test the reliability of the interpretive principles of dispensationalism.16

Despite the above-noted irregularities, others such as Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843–1921) soon accepted Darby’s system of thought. He then proceeded to intersperse dispensational annotations into his Scofield Reference Bible—first published in 1909 and followed by revisions in 1917 and 1967, the latter by others after his death. This initial endeavor was undertaken by Scofield despite his having no formal theological training. The Scofield Reference Bible soon became very popular and widespread among the Christian community with the result of disseminating the dispensational system of thought more quickly and geographically further than perhaps even Darby could have imagined. Its popularity among the theologically uneducated meant that they could now easily understand eschatology—albeit in the dispensational manner—without the discipline of personal in-depth study and without the need to consult with other writers. The result: dispensationalism gained widespread, yet uncritical acceptance.17 Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871–1952), who was influenced by Scofield’s views, founded in 1924 Dallas Theological Seminary—a seminary that would aid the spread and acceptance of dispensationalism through dispensational scholars such as Walvoord and Ryrie.18 Through Scofield’s Bible and the writings of such people, dispensationalism has continued to shape the eschatological understanding of many people, churches, and denominations to the extent that it continues to hold great sway; its effects are presently impacting the lives of millions of people, both Christian and non-Christian. This is so despite the fact that today only a relatively small segment of Christian scholarship adheres to dispensationalism and that it was unheard of for the first eighteen-and-a-half centuries of the Christian church.19

A Brief System Overview

Dispensationalism, despite the presence of some internal disagreement, in its most common form regards human history as divided into seven periods (dispensations) of time, each administered by God using differing means to test human obedience according to some specific revelation...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Hermeneutics of Dispensational Premillennialism: A Critique
• Chapter 2: Who Is Israel? A Discussion of Dispensational and Non-Dispensational Perspectives
• Chapter 3: The Kingdom of God
• Chapter 4: The Rapture and the Tribulation
• Chapter 5: The Millennium
• Chapter 6: Earthing Our Eschatology
• Bibliography