My Concerns with Dispensationalism

In the previous article in this column I covered a few of my concerns with Covenant Theology. That included an overview of each view and the differences, which I will not rehash at length here.

In short, both covenantalism and dispensationalism are meta-systems (whole-Bible theologies) for understanding the overarching storyline of the Bible. Proponents of both systems agree on the most-significant Christian doctrines, but disagree (1) regarding how Israel and the Church relate to each other as entities within God’s redemptive plan, and (2) how we are to relate the Old and New Testaments, particularly regarding how the New Testament fulfills the Old.

The Sword and Trumpet is dispensational and premillennial. We are committed to a straightforward interpretation of both Old and New Testaments and to maintaining appropriate distinctions between Israel and the Church.

As with many labels, “dispensationalism” covers a variety of ideas, some of which we at S&T do not endorse. This article is an attempt to gently point out some places where dispensationalism has been pushed too far, to the distortion or dissolution of clear biblical doctrines. As always, readers are welcome to email me if they have questions or disagreements.

1. Fascination with eschatological details God has chosen to conceal

Dispensationalists sometimes have a reputation for overcomplicating end times events. While it is true that God has revealed many things regarding the final events of history, we need to be careful that we don’t outrun God’s word. For example, the mark of the beast has been falsely identified in the past with the internet, credit cards, and social security. All of these were false connections. Will there be a real mark? Yes, I believe so. But in Revelation it is linked to worshipping the beast. That is to say, those who receive the mark know what they’re doing and they’re willfully choosing to follow the beast. It is not helpful to pair a Bible passage of uncertain interpretation with a current event which people dislike or are fearful of.

Another example is the perpetual date setting. Many people thought they had everything lined up and could predict when Jesus would return and the tribulation would begin. But they have always been wrong. Some early Anabaptists thought they were living just before the tribulation. But we’re still here, 500 years later. That’s not to say God will not keep His promises (He certainly will) or to imply that we should be ignorant regarding end-times events. But we need to be cautious about assuming that the world is ending just because we think things are as bad as they could possibly get.ii

2. Dividing the Old and New Testaments

In a genuine concern to distinguish between Israel and the church, some dispensationalists have driven a wedge between the Old and New Testaments, thinking that the church exists in a totally different program from Israel. Early dispensationalists did believe something like this, but the movement as a whole corrected itself later. I would be hard-pressed to find a well-read dispensationalist who maintains that Israel and the church are entirely distinct organisms.

This idea is inconsistent with the teaching of the apostles, who are continually anchoring their teaching in the Old Testament to show the continuity in God’s redemptive plans between the Testaments. To this point, the apostle Paul does not speak of two separate trees in Romans 11, but rather says that the Gentiles were “grafted in” among the Jewish branches in a Jewish tree. Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, and the Gentiles are grafted into Him—made partakers of the promises which God originally made to the Jews.

The dispensational distinction is not that Israel and the church are entirely separate, but rather that there are certain promises made to Israel (regarding the promised land and future kingdom) that await fulfillment in the future—and are therefore not absorbed into the church. There is a measure of continuity, but not total continuity nor total discontinuity.

3. Teaching a different way of salvation for the Jews than for the Church

Similarly, some think that dispensationalism teaches two ways of salvation: Old Testament Jews by keeping the law, and New Testament believers by grace through faith. This is out of step with the character of the Old Testament (which continually points to God’s redemptive grace) and several New Testament passages which define saving faith by using the example of Old Testament saints like David and Abraham (cf. Romans 4 and 10, Galatians 2, Hebrews 11). The Bible teaches one way of salvation: by faith in Christ.

4. Over-literal interpretations which ignore symbolism

Dispensationalism is marked by a literal-grammatical-historical hermeneutic. But this has sometimes been pushed too far, and every symbol is interpreted as if it is describing a physical reality. This tendency abounds especially in interpreting Revelation. A total-literalism expects an exact correlation between everything described in the book and end-times events. But this begins to break down in a place like Revelation 17, where we read of “a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns” but then are told that she is “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” She is described as a woman, but then she is a city—Babylon. A little later we are told that the seven heads are seven mountains with seven kings, and the ten horns are ten more kings. Strangely enough, the ten kings (which are the ten horns) make the harlot desolate and naked, and eat her flesh and burn her with fire. If we try to take this as a physical woman riding a physical beast, we quickly run into interpretive problems. This woman is meant to be understood symbolically, as is especially clear at the end of the chapter where she is described as “that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.”

As opposed to this kind of total-literalism, covenantalism utilizes allegory, interpreting symbols as representing spiritual realities. But it seems better to me to land somewhere in the middle. Revelation includes many symbols, but they correspond to physical realities. We should not take them in a wooden literalism nor as mere symbols.

We take our cues from a passage where we see both the symbols and the fulfillment. Daniel 7 is a great example. He describes four beasts which come out of the sea. Verses 4-14 describe the dominions of each of these beasts, then Daniel asks “one of those who stood by” what the beasts mean. He was told, “Those great beasts, which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth.” These four kingdoms are easily identified with four kingdoms which rose and fell during and after Daniel’s life: Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman.

If this is normative (and I think it is), we should expect a similar fulfillment pattern for Revelation. The symbols are intended to communicate physical realities (national, historical, chronological, etc.). They should not be taken strictly literally, nor should they be entirely allegorized.

5. Obsession with modern events in the nation-state of Israel

While I don’t believe God has entirely cast off Abraham’s physical descendants, I don’t think there’s biblical warrant to argue for God’s divine blessing on the current nation-state of Israel. If we evaluate the nation by the words of the Old Testament prophets, they are a people in rebellion and deserving judgment. It may be that God has brought them back to Palestine to prepare them for a great revival, but it is difficult (in my opinion) to see Israel in its current state as representing the restored kingdom depicted in the Old Testament prophecies. The prophecies regarding the restoration of Israel to the land promise a concurrent revival of heart, which is certainly not what we see today.

While the establishment of Israel as a modern nation is a fascinating story—and it includes some events which appear to be providentially orchestrated—it is hard for me to say that Israel is a nation blessed by God. I look forward to the day when God turns their hearts back to Himself, and I hope that day will come soon.

6. Missing the forest for the trees

This concern is a bit more general. If covenantalists miss the trees for the forest, dispensationalists miss the forest for the trees. Sometimes we become so occupied with the details of a particular part of Scripture that we forget to step back and take in the whole picture. Dispensationalists ought to do biblical theology too. We need to ask if our particular emphases are rightly ordered within the overarching redemptive themes of Scripture.

7. Allowing the system to distort Scripture

Finally, I’m concerned when dispensationalists are so committed to their system that they distort or dismiss what the Bible says. Christians do not need to fear the truth, which means we don’t need to shy away from the clear meaning of any part of Scripture. Sometimes we avoid texts because they threaten our tucked-and-tied theology. But we should work to harmonize them instead of dismissing them. This means more than just reinterpreting one text to fit our preferred interpretation of another. The truth is found at the intersection of all texts, when each one is given its proper weight. When we harmonize them as we ought to, we may realize that we’ve wrongly weighted certain portions of Scripture to the exclusion of others. This reveals that our system doesn’t quite match Scripture’s—and that means we need to change! We need to evaluate our ideas to see if they fit the text of Scripture. Scripture, rightly interpreted, must remain our lodestar.

Conclusion

This article is a bit more specific than the previous one because I’m dealing with in-house issues. The Sword and Trumpet has been dispensational and premillennial for decades, so I expect most of our readers are somewhat dispensational. That means there’s a bit more clean up work to do. Let’s be Bible people first and foremost. That doesn’t mean we try to reject all systems, but rather that we subject all systems to Scripture. The above concerns show areas where I think we have at times misinterpreted or neglected certain biblical truths. Does one of these fit you?