Introduction In this installment of our series on what I have called “Biblical Covenantalism” I want to concentrate on the matter of interpretation as it relates to the Covenants of Scripture. I have alluded to this in an earlier article, but I want to say more because I believe this matter to be so vital for a proper understanding of the Bible. As is recognized by most Dispensationalists, many of those brethren who denigrate Dispensational theology for its “literalistic” …
Category: Dispensationalism
I have just finished reading an interesting autobiography by a major Bible teacher of the first part of the 20th Century named Arno C. Gaebelein. The book is titled A Half Century: The Autobiography of a Servant. The book is beautifully bound and signed by the author, August 10th 1944. Gaebelein died a year later. I found several items of interest in the book that I thought I would like to share. I should first say something about the subject. …
46. Contrary to dispensationalism’s claim that “the Church is a mystery, unrevealed in the Old Testament” (J. D. Pentecost), the New Testament writers look to the Old Testament for its divine purpose and role in the history of redemption and declare only that the mystery was not known “to the sons of men” at large, and was not known to the same degree “as” it is now revealed to all men in the New Testament (Eph 3:4-6), even noting that …
So far in our present studies in “Biblical Covenantalism” we have seen that what is known as Dispensationalism is not very well named. Not that dispensations are foreign to Scripture, but the name does not describe the distinctive approach to the Bible and Theology that is quintessential to the system. On the contrary, it brings to prominence things which are of far less importance than the matters we have been discussing with regard to the Covenants of Scripture. It is …
41. Despite the dispensationalists’ claim that the descendents of the patriarchs never inhabited all the land promised to them in the Abrahamic covenant and therefore, since God cannot lie, the possession of the land by the Jews is still in the future; on the contrary, Joshua wrote, “So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it… Not a word failed …
Apologies for not posting for the a while. Among other things I was doing a conference in MI. Anyway, here are some more responses to the Nicene Council. I again wish to stress that we ought to be able to discuss our disagreements without branding each other as heretics or any such pejorative term. I certainly don’t have all the answers! Albeit, I think I have something to say in answer to these “Theses.” We are on Thesis 37: …
31. Despite the dispensationalists’ strong commitment to the “plain interpretation” of Scripture (Charles Ryrie) and its dependence on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks as “of major importance to premillennialism” (John Walvoord), they have to insert into the otherwise chronological progress of the singular period of “Seventy Weeks” (Dan 9:24) a gap in order to make their system work; and that gap is already four times longer than the whole Seventy Weeks (490 year) period. Response: The 70 Weeks prophecy is not at …
A Biblical Covenant is a thing of tremendous importance for the student of Scripture. For one thing, these covenants (made e.g., with Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, David) were made by God Almighty Himself. When God deigns to make a covenant with men one can be sure that He has some great strategic purpose in mind. In which case it is crucial to pay close attention to what is stated, otherwise the intention of God forecasted in the covenant …
26. Despite the dispensationalists’ interpretive methodology arguing that we must interpret the Old Testament on its own merit without reference to the New Testament, so that we must “interpret ‘the New Testament in the light of the Old’” (Alan Johnson), the unified, organic nature of Scripture and its typological, unfolding character require that we consult the New Testament as the divinely-ordained interpreter of the Old Testament, noting that all the prophecies are “yea and amen in Christ” (2 Cor 1:20); …
24. Despite the dispensationalists’ partial defense of their so-called literalism in pointing out that “the prevailing method of interpretation among the Jews at the time of Christ was certainly this same method” (J. D. Pentecost), they overlook the problem that this led those Jews to misunderstand Christ and to reject him as their Messiah because he did not come as the king which their method of interpretation predicted. Response: It is not advisable to refer to Dispensational interpretation as “literalism” …
