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The Fundamental Mistake of the Theology That Captured Evangelical Christianity
Posted : 29 Jul, 2011 03:51 AM
The Fundamental Mistake of the Theology That Captured Evangelical Christianity
Some "Dispys," or those who follow dispensationalism, are now bailing
out of the pre-tribulation rapture theory. But they refuse to come
out of the fundamental starting points of this theology. The theology has
to be called something. Its usually called "dispensationalism,"
though many Christians who follow this theology do not know what
dispensationalism means.. Their preachers taught
them the theology, but often did not teach them that this system of
doctrines is usually called dispensationalism.
What are these starting postulates of dispensationalism?
John Darby (1800-1882), the father of dispensationalism, said that the
dispensation of law ended at the
cross when the dispensation of grace began. But then when the seven
year dispensationalist tribulation period begins, another dispensation
of law begins - so proposed Darby. This created a problem for Darby's
thery. How could another dispensation of law go on when the church was
still on earth? He thought that in the dispensation of law during the
tribulation, God would be dealing with the Jews. Would the church in
the tribulation return to be under the law? The solution was that Darby
postulated that before the events of the tribulation began and the one
man dispensationalist Anti-Christ appeared, the church would be
raptured off the earth. With the church gone, God would then turn to
deal with the Jews during the tribulation, to save all Jews, all living
then or part of those living then..
Darby postulated that there will be a new dispensation during the
tribulation period. To postulate means to assume the existence, fact,
or truth of something. In logic, an axiom or postulate is a
proposition that is not proved, but is assumed as the starting point
of a system of thought. That is, Darby did not get his starting
principle that there would be a different dispensation from scripture,
but just made it up himself.
In dispensationalism there is one Israel. It is physical Israel,
which begins with the promise
to Abraham in Genesis 17: 7 that God would establish a covenant with
Abraham and his
seed which would be everlasting. I know of no writings of the
classical dispensationalists who
accept Paul's teachings in Romans 9: 6-8 and in Galatians 4: 25-26
that there are two
different Israels, one the children of the flesh, or Israel after the
flesh (I Corinthians 10: 18),
and the other the children of the promise in Romans 9: 8, as the
spiritual seed from Abraham, and therefore
the children of God. This is the same saved Israel which Paul in
Galatians 4: 26 calls that Jerusalem
which is above, is free and is the mother of us all.
I know of no dispensationalist authority who makes a distinction
between apostate physical Israel of the
Old Covenant and that Remnant of old Israel who were faithful to God.
That is, some may talk about those
of Old Covenant Israel who were faithful, but the dispesationalists
do not make the distinction between the
two Israels of the Old Covenant a fundamental starting doctrine of
their theology.
By Christ's time most of physical Israel followed the religion of the
Pharisees, or oral Talmudic Judaism. Hebrews Chapter Eleven lists
some of the faithful of old Israel who lived by faith. Those listed
in this chapter include Abel, Enouch, Noah, Abraham, Sara, Isaac,
Jacob,
Moses, Gideon, and even the prostitute Rahab. "These all died in
faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar
off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Hebrews 11: 13 There
were a few Hebrews at the time Christ was born who were faithful, such
as Simeon and Anna discussed in Luke Chapter 2.
In Matthew 27: 52-53, after Christ died on the Cross and the veil of
the temple was torn, indicating the Old Covenant was taken away
(Hebrews 10: 9), "The graves
were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose...and went
into the holy city and appeared unto many."
But Charles C. Ryrie (born 1925) says of classical dispensationalism
that the: "basic primise of Dispensationalism is two purposes of God
expressed in the formation of two peoples who maintain their distinction
throughout eternity." Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 1966,
pp.44-45.
J. Dwight Pentecost is another dispensationalist theologian who in his
book Things To Come ( 1965) says "The church and Israel are two
distinct groups with whom God has a divine plan...These considerations
all arise from
a literal method of interpretation." (page 193, J. Dwight Pentecost,
Things To Come, Zondervan, 1965)....
In dispensationalism "Israel" is always one group, all those who claim
physical descent from Abraham.
At the Cross the promise to Abraham that his seed would be in a covenant with
God forever was changed from the physical seed, the literal DNA of
Abraham, to Abraham's
spiritual seed, to those who like Abraham, believed God. As Paul says
in Romans 9: 8"They which
are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God."
Followers of dispensationalism cling to their fundamental belief that
physical Israel, the children of the flesh, remain God's chosen
people. They cling to that belief in physical Israel as the chosen
people, which is called Jewish supremacy, because they think their
identity in Christ is based upon believing physical Israel is the
chosen people. This belief is in great part based on Romans 11: 17
that they as Gentiles of the "church" are grafted into the good olive
tree which, from dispensationalism, they think, is all physical
Israel. Yet Paul is not inconsistent in his doctrines. To be
consistent with Romans 9: 6-8, Galatians 4: 25-26, Romans 2: 28-29,
Galatians 3: 28-29 and other New Testament texts, that Israel into
which Gentile Christians are grafted into is Jerusalem which is above,
is free and is the mother of us all, and in Romans 9: 8 the children
of the promise to Abraham as his spiritual seed, rather than his
physical seed who are not born again.
On another Christian forum a couple of years ago, I was saying that
Paul in I Corinthians 15: 52 said that Christ
will appear at the last trump, or the last trumpet, which would be the
seventh trumpet at the end of the tribulation. But a follower of dispensationalism replied and
said, no, Paul did not mean the last trumpet of the Book of
Revelation. What Paul meant, this dispensationalism said, was a
trumpet sounding in some aspect of the Old Covenant ceremonial law,
during some feast day. This dispensationalist also added that as
Christians grafted into Israel, we need to know more of that Old
Covenant stuff.
In attributing the status of God's chosen people to all physical
Israel, most of whom when Christ walked the earth were in Talmudic
Judaism, the religion of the Pharisees, and not believing I Peter 2: 9
that Christians are the chosen people following the Cross,
dispenationalists have, like Esau in Genesis 25, given up their
birthright.
Their birthright is in Israel, but they have the wrong Israel. Christ
came to save Israel, but that Israel which has an identity in Jesus
Christ, as their spiritual birthright, is Israel reborn in Christ
(John 3: 1-6). Only those born again in Christ are part of saved
Israel.
In having attached themselves one construct called Israel, and not to
born again Israel, dispensationalists are in danger of being told
"I knew you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of
iniquity." Luke 13: 25-27 He doesn't mean he does not know them
where they live geographically, but he does not know them as his own
where they have positioned themselves in their beliefs, in their
doctrines. They are on the broad way of Matthew 7: 13-14, and not the
narrow way.
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