Matt Postiff's Blog

It occurs to me that there is a likeness between these two ideas:

1. Splitting the Mosaic Law into components and pulling forward (from the past) the moral component into the church age.

Left behind are the ceremonial and civil parts of the law, as well as the curses for disobedience.

2. Splitting the New Covenant into components and pulling back (from the future) the spiritual component into the church age.

Left "ahead" are the physical, agricultural, economic, and political parts of the New Covenant. Also left "ahead" are spiritual components that find no fulfillment in the present era (all will know the Lord, universal forgiveness for Israel).

It seems inconsistent to criticize #1 at the same time to accept #2.

It seems more consistent to accept both #1 and #2 or reject them both.

The problem with accepting both it puts Christians today under parts of two covenants--the Mosaic and the New. This has a somewhat suspect basis. I say this about the Law covenant because Paul writes:

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Galatians 5:18).

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? (Galatians 4:21)

But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "the just shall live by faith." (Galatians 3:11)

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:14)

So, Christians are not under "the law," nor are they under "part of the law." This is no major loss, for we have the Law of Christ as our directive, a law operational on the basis of grace and the indwelling ministry of the Spirit.

As far as splitting the New Covenant, the New Covenant is specifically directed to Israel, not the church. This is clear from a review of the primary passage:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (Jeremiah 31:33)

Note the phrase "I will make with the house of Israel."

Finally, it does not appear to me that the New Covenant has actually been made yet. Certainly, its sacrificial basis is complete in the work of Christ. Certainly massive spiritual benefits come out of that work into Christians today. But those are not necessarily direct fulfillments of the New Covenant. They do not constitute the "making" of a covenant, where the people group to be covenanted has offered no agreement to the terms of the covenant. In fact, most of the terms of the covenant (and some could argue all of its terms) remain unfulfilled.

The prophet above says that the time of the making of the covenant is "after those days." Jeremiah is clear that those days were "coming" future to his writing.

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- (Jeremiah 31:31)

According to Ezekiel 20:35-37, this will happen during the eschaton:

"And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face...I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant (Ezekiel 20:35, 37)

This has not happened yet.

The most accurate viewpoint, as I understand it, is to keep both the Law and New Covenants whole, not splitting them such that some terms of one or the other, or both, fall upon the church.

In his book Faith Alone, Arnold Fruchtenbaum is explaining the fifth chapter of Galatians regarding the works of the flesh. He writes:

[Paul] points out that people who practise such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. While these works are common among the unsaved, saved people, of course, can also fall into these sins. While all will enter the Messianic Kingdom not all will inherit the Messianic Kingdom, meaning not all will be rewarded and receive a position of honor and glory in the Kingdom. So how we live now does matter and will matter for a thousand years. These works [of the flesh] in believers do not mean that they will not enter the Kingdom, but it does mean that they are not walking on the basis of the newborn human spirit. (Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Faith Alone: The Condition of Our Salvation, Ariel Ministries, 2014, p. 53.)

The distinction between entering and inheriting the kingdom is unheard of among conservative Christians, and is rejected by most dispensationalists. More than that, it is unbiblical. Paul is calling out people who practice the sins of the flesh. People who are idolaters, sorcerers, heretics, murderers, drunks, and so forth will neither enter nor inherit the kingdom of God. In the same way, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 describes these people. They are unsaved. They will not enjoy the kingdom for 1000 years, nor will they enjoy heaven or anything else after they die.

A believer may fall into temporary sin such as some listed in Paul's sin lists. But that is not the same as those who practice such sins, relish in them, never repent of them, and continue to live in them.

In the bigger picture of theology, we need to beware of the three-tiered system of theology that teaches there are (1) unbelieving fleshly people (who don't enter or inherit the kingdom), (2) believing carnal people (who enter but do not inherit?), and (3) believing spiritual people (who enter and inherit?). We must recognize that unbelieving people are fleshly and that is the same as saying they are carnal. Anyone in the so-called carnal state needs to leave that state, as Paul commands. That state is not acceptable because it is exactly the same as the unbelieving=fleshly state. Granted, one may behave carnally for a temporary period of time, but one who lives carnally all the time, with no repentance, shows absolutely no fruit of salvation, despite any of their verbal protestations to the contrary.

There are TWO kinds of people according to Romans 8:5-9. Only one will inherit/enter the kingdom, and heaven. The other will NOT.

In Perspectives on Israel and the Church: 4 Views, Chad O. Brand and Tom Pratt, Jr. criticize Robert L. Thomas's view of the kingdom on page 150:

He then identifies that as the millennial kingdom, which in his view includes only Israel with Christ in the Holy Land.

I read Thomas's chapter, and I did not get that exclusive of a definition of the kingdom from what I read--only Israel? It strikes me that Brand and Pratt are imposing their view of dispensationalism upon Thomas.

Granted, I could have missed something in my reading of Thomas with my own predisposed view of dispensationalism. That matters far less than this fact: the text of Scripture is clearly against such an exclusive view of the kingdom, even on a dispensational reading of it.

For example, Isaiah 19:25 speaks of Egypt and Assyria along with Israel, and a highway connecting them. We understand this to be in the millennial kingdom. Zechariah 14:18 speaks of judgment on any nation that does not come up to share in the Feast of Booths with Israel during the kingdom. Psalm 2 refers to the nations who will be subjugated under the world-wide rule of the Messiah. This too is during the millennial kingdom. Revelation 2:27 promises power over the nations emanating from the iron-rod rule of Christ. The Son has always been destined to rule all nations, not just Israel, according to Revelation 12:5 and 19:15. This reign will be shared with resurrected saints of unspecified ethnicity, according to Revelation 20:4, 6. We know that the faithful in Christ will be privileged to participate in this reign, according to 2 Timothy 2:12, which is a reference to the church.

Thus the nation of Israel will be the head and not the tail: they will sit atop the nations of the world as closest to the Messiah in His reign (Deut. 28:13) instead of in the despised position they occupy in this age.

Let theologians of every persuasion be clear, whether progressive dispensational, covenantal, progressive covenantal, or new covenant, that the millennnial kingdom includes Israel in its holy land, and Christ, and the church, and the nations of the world as well.

Kevin DeYoung has written on the identity of the 144,000 servants of God in Revelation 7:3-8. He starts this way:

The 144,000 are not an ethnic Jewish remnant, and certainly not an Anointed Class of saints who became Jehovah’s Witnesses before 1935. The 144,000 “sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” (Rev. 7:4) represent the entire community of the redeemed. Let me give you several reasons for making this claim.

I have no argument with Pastor DeYoung's second denial--that the 144,000 are "certainly not...Jehovah's Witnesses." But I have to take issue with his assertion that these are not an ethnic Jewish remnant.

Let us suppose for a moment that God will in fact seal a certain number of ethnic Jews for a particular purpose or mission during the Tribulation period. Just how could God express this fact in writing through John if He could not convince the modern reader with the words that He used in Revelation 7:4? Perhaps something like this would have been sufficient:

Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. I. Mean. Jews! And. I. Mean. One. Hundred. Forty. Four. Thousand! (hypothetical Rev. 7:4)

The hermeneutical contortions that DeYoung forces upon the text are just too much. The text is clear as it is written. If God means what DeYoung says, why did He not simply say it plainly that way?

Now for a brief critique each of DeYoung's supporting arguments.

First, whether or not it "makes sense" that God would seal all of His followers, the text only mentions these 144,000 Jewish ones being sealed. Satan's action in chapter 13 is irrelevant.

Second, using a text from Ezekiel 9 to support a seemingly "similar distinction based on who worships God" and denying any Jewish connection is tenuous. This is particularly so since those who were sealed in Ezekiel were Jews.

Third, DeYoung says, "the 144,000 are called the servants of our God…There is no reason to make the 144,000 any more restricted than that." What he means is that the only descriptive phrase that is allowed to be taken literally is "servants of God." The number and the ethnicity are not allowed to be taken literally. When John heard the number, what he heard was not significant, DeYoung implies. So why didn't John just say, "Then I heard that those servants were sealed," and dispense with the remainder of verses 4-8? In fact, the phrase servants of God, the number, and the ethnicity all contribute to the meaning of the text.

Fourth, DeYoung argues from the descriptions "redeemed from the earth" and "purchased from among men" that this language is generic, applying to everyone. Again the question must be asked—why didn't God just leave out the extra descriptions, and make explicit that this was all the redeemed that were on the earth at that time in the prophecy? He asserts that the number is symbolic of the redeemed "drawn from all peoples, not simply the Jews." He adds that it must be symbolic, because "not defiled with women" (14:4) cannot mean celibate Jewish men…in spite of the fact that the text affirms that they are virgins.

Fifth, DeYoung states that the tribe list and their numbers are highly stylized, so they are not to be taken literally. This reminds me of the framework hypothesis of the creation account, which argues in part that the account is highly stylized, so it cannot be understood as a literal narrative of the events of the creation week. To the contrary, though both passages display wonderful literary quality, this does not mean that it cannot be understood literally.

In sum, the bottom line of DeYoung's argument is that he cannot make sense of the text literally within his theological framework, so it makes more sense to take it to mean something other than what it says. Granted, there is much symbolic language in Revelation. But, for example, an angel whose "face is like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire" is quite a bit different than a number and a list of tribes of Israel. There is a distinction between symbolic language and plain language, and Revelation 7:3-8 is definitely on the plain side of that divide.

I would add one more argument in favor of taking the text literally to refer to Jews. Read on to verse 9:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. (Rev. 7:9 NIV)

John refers to tribes of Jews in 7:3-8, and then immediately mentions "every nation, tribe, people, and language." This strengthens our understanding that the 144,000 are in fact ethnic Jews whom God sets apart for special protection and service during the Tribulation. Why would God refer to "all the redeemed" as 144,000 of the Jewish tribes, and then immediately repeat Himself but using the broader language of "every nation"? It makes more sense that Scripture means Jews when it says Jews, and it means "every nation" when it says every nation.

Ultimately what is at stake in this debate is how we read the Bible. Someone like DeYoung reads the exact same passages I do; but he reads at least this one a whole lot differently than I do and, I would argue, he reads it incorrectly.

Clint Archer also defends a literal reading of the 144,000. He follows up with a good article on why the 1000 years of Revelation 20 is to be taken literally.

A couple of details mentioned in Revelation 19-20 about the beast, false prophet, and the devil give us a clue that we are correct in our basic chronology of a 1,000-year kingdom between the Tribulation and eternal state.

In 19:20, the beast and false prophet who were so active during the Tribulation are thrown alive into the lake of fire. They are the first residents of that place (all prior souls have gone to a similar but different place called Hades).

After this, chapter 20 portrays the Devil as being bound and locked into another different place--the bottomless pit. After being incarcerated there for 1,000 years, he is released a little while (20:3, 7) and deceives the nations (20:8). This results in the final battle between God and Satan, who is thrown into the lake of fire (20:9-10).

In the middle of verse 10, note is made of the fact that the Devil is cast into the place where the beast and false prophet also already were. They had been there for 1,000 years. The fact that Satan is placed where they already were helps us to see that we have the order of events right. The beast and false prophet are sent to Hell, then there are 1,000 years, and then Satan is sent to Hell.

None of these things has occurred yet. We are boxed in by the text, so to speak, such that we must see a millennium intervening between two resurrections, all of which is yet future. The amillennial interpretation simply cannot be correct because it demands the present age immediately be followed by eternity with no intervening Tribulation and 1,000 year kingdom before the final judgment of Revelation 20:11-15.

We continue in our quest to carefully develop a sequence of future events as taught in Scripture. As we saw last time, such an eschatology must take the text in Revelation 20:1-6 literally.

When we do that, we immediately find deficiencies in other approaches. For instance, we find that we cannot take seriously any interpretive system that teaches a single general resurrection. The text of Scripture could not be more clear that there are two resurrections separated by 1000 years. There must therefore be at least two resurrections. The Bible may reveal more detail or even more resurrections, but there cannot be fewer than two. I think other interpretations are caught in the older revelatory information that says things like Daniel 12:2. The

It is also clear from a plain reading of the text that the Lord Jesus returns to the earth before the millennial kingdom and after the Tribulation. That is, His coming is premillennnial. That is how the sequence of events is portrayed by John in Revelation 19-20.

I did not spell it out in the last post, but I do hold to a futurist interpretation of most of the book of Revelation. The events described in the book after chapter 3 match nothing that the world has experienced in history up to this point.

Moving "backwards" in the sequence of events and to begin to answer the question about whether there is a pre-tribulational rapture of the church, let us shift our attention to Revelation 3:10. This text records a promise of Jesus that He will keep the church in Philadelphia from the hour of trial which is going to come upon the whole world. Contextually, it seems clear that this hour of trial refers to what is written in Revelation 6 through 19. I take this as paradigmatic of the church as a whole. Certainly the very believers in that church were kept from the hour of trial, since the Tribulation was yet future to them as it is to us this day in 2016. But their deliverance is a kind of pattern of the deliverance of the entire church from the Tribulation. Other texts of Scripture agree with this notion (1 Thess. 1:10 and 5:9).

The entirety of Revelation 6 through 19 support the absence of the church by its silence about the church. Granted, there are some believers present during the Tribulation. These people are converted during the Tribulation through the witness of God's messengers (Revelation 7 and 14). Their life is evidently difficult because of the persecution done by Satan. The marked silence of Revelation on the church makes it a fool's errand to prove that the church is present during the Tribulation.

There are a number of other supporting arguments for the pre-tribulation rapture. Among them are the nature of Daniel's 70th week focusing as it does on God's program with Israel, the consistent distinction of the church and Israel throughout the New Testament, the imminence of the coming of Christ (at the rapture) as contrasted with the signs that indicate that Israel's redemption is drawing near, the restrainer in 2 Thess. 2, the differences between a translation of believers and the coming of Christ to the earth, the 24 elders in Revelation, the proclamation of peace and safety in 1 Thess. 5:3, the lack of instruction about the Tribulation in the epistolary literature, Israel as the focus of Satan's attacks during the Tribulation (Rev. 12), and the complete apostasy during the Tribulation. These and more are detailed in chapter 13 of J. Dwight Pentecost's book Things to Come, pp. 193-218.

Since I have been asked recently about eschatology, I thought I would write on how to develop a simple, Biblical, systematic approach to eschatology, the study of last things.

The system of thought that comes out of this approach is called pretribulational premillennialism. It is sometimes called dispensational premillennialism, to distinguish it from historic premillennialism.

I start with the principle of literal interpretation, in which words are understood according to the plain meaning. I argue that the literal interpretation is key to understanding any portion of the Bible. Literal interpretation is feasible and much easier than a spiritualized or allegorical interpretation. It presents no impossible difficulties.

So, how do you develop a system of eschatology? Besides using literal interpretation, we also rely on clear texts to develop our framework, and then we fit less clear or harder-to-understand texts into that framework. All will admit that there are easier and there are harder texts to interpret and assimilate into our system of understanding the Scripture. I believe it is valid to read through Scripture, and build an understanding bit by bit from portions that are easier to understand, and to add in other portions as I go. As a finite creature, I'm not sure how else it could be done. Of course, later data may and certainly should shape and re-shape my earlier conclusions, but clear texts cannot be overridden by less clear, more difficult ones.

We will use as our starting point the same text that Challies mentioned above, Revelation 20:1-6. Somewhat surprisingly, the apostle John departs from the highly symbolic and figurative approach of the prior chapters in the Apocalypse and drops into some very normal prose.

For my amillennial friends, let me ask you to, just for a few minutes, suspend disbelief and suppose that God's program could be what the literal reading of this text suggests, namely:

19:11, Christ returns to the earth after a terrible time of tribulation upon the earth and executes His enemies and those who oppose His people. This time of Tribulation is one that has not been previously experienced in world history and thus is yet future.

20:1-3, An angel is comes down from heaven to incarcerate Satan. This imprisonment lasts 1000 years and its purpose is to prevent Satan from deceiving the nations during that 1000 year time period.

20:4, Believers who had been martyred during the terrible time of tribulation re-appear, seated with Jesus upon thrones from which they rule the world. Their re-appearance occurred because they were resurrected. The text says that they had been beheaded, but now lived. They did this for 1000 years.

20:5, The rest of the dead, which I believe refers to those who do not believe in God, were not resurrected until the end of the 1000 years. The resurrection which occurs prior to the 1000 years is the first resurrection. The second resurrection happens after the 1000 years. This proves that there are at least two resurrections.

20:6, A special blessing is pronounced upon those who take part in the first resurrection. The blessing has to do, among other things, with participating in the kingdom of Christ in the prior verse. The blessing also has to do with the fact that the second death has no power over them, but rather they will be priests of God and Christ, and will reign with Christ for 1000 years. 20:14 defines the second death for us, namely that which occurs when someone is thrown into the lake of fire.

There shouldn't be any question that God could do all of the above. I don't think there is any question that He is intending us to understand Scripture to say exactly that. I wonder how He could or should have been more clear if the above is not what He meant. The sequence of John's presentation makes it clear that he saw these things in his vision in the order they are recorded. The time words as to the 1000 years, and events before and after, make it clear that it is not only the order of the vision, but also the order of events are portrayed by the vision.

To be continued...

I was asked recently about the Feast of Pentecost and its significance for the Christian. Here are some thoughts on that subject.

I am skeptical of doing a deep search for meaning in the feasts of Israel. I am convinced that the Biblical text will tell us plainly what we need to know. We need not hunt for hidden significance, or worry that we will miss something if we don't do such a search. Furthermore, I have seen a lot of 'stretching' of the feasts to find significance in them for us today.

In general, all the feasts of Israel present us an opportunity to teach what God expected ancient Israel to do in terms of religious observances. They also provide an open door to show that there are dispensational distinctions between the Jews of old, Gentiles, and the church. In the church, we don't do some of the things Israel did.

In particular, Pentecost reminds us of the following:

1. To be thankful for the agricultural harvest, because our food depends on God. This is indicated in the word "firstfruits" in Lev. 23:17. Firstfruits is a word that is tied to harvest and agriculture.

2. The giving of the Ten Commandments, in Jewish thought, is tied to the giving of the Law. That connection is not explicit in the Bible. The timing is a bit off if you compare the "three months" from Exodus 12:2 to Exodus 19:1 just before the Law was given, since that would be about 28*3 = 84 days after Passover and the departure from Egypt, instead of 50 days after Passover.

3. Acts 2 and the birth of the church along with the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is just a reminder, however, because that information was hidden from, not revealed to, Israel, until Acts 2. Pentecost does not teach church truth. It just happens to be the time at which God decided to send the Spirit and complete the steps required to start the church.

Dispensationalists among themselves, along with covenant theologians, have debated the correct way to express the Christian Gentile's relationship to the New Covenant, and to the related Abrahamic and Davidic covenants. The answers range from two new covenants to full involvement of the Gentile in the new covenant at the expense of Israel, to participation in the spiritual blessings in the covenant. See Dispensational Understanding of the New Covenant: 3 Views: Regular Baptist Books, 2012 (available here).

Another way of explaining it is to use the language of Paul in Ephesians 2:13. He says that those who were formerly without God, without hope, and strangers to the covenants of promise were "brought near" by the blood of Christ. This seems to be close to the spiritual participation view which I have held. It is as if being 'near' lets some of the blessings of the covenants "rub off onto the Gentile Christian" or "diffuse over to the Christian" because of a new-found proximity to those promises.

It does not say "brought into" or "merged," thus maintaining a distinction between Israel and the Church. Nor does it indicate a duplication of the covenants as if there are two new covenants or two sets of covenant promises.

So our relationship to the covenants is that we are brought near. It is sort of simple, but the advantage of this explanation is that it uses straightforward Biblical terminology.

or, "Becoming More Familiar with the Old Testament Prophets"

In July, I spent some time with our church family reading through a number of prophecies about the future restoration of Israel. Because most of them were from the Old Testament, I put the subtitle on the message to indicate the need that most Christians have of becoming more familiar with their Old Testament.

Here is the list of texts that we examined:

1. Exodus 19:5-6, and note God's initial intention for the nation which was thwarted by their sin
2. Jeremiah 31:27-40
3. Jeremiah 33:14-26, and note the kingdom/political overtones
4. Ezekiel 36:22-38
5. Ezekiel 37:1-28
6. Daniel 9:27
7. Daniel 12:1-3
8. Hosea 14:1-9
9. Joel 3:18-21
10. Amos 9:11-15
11. Obadiah 17-21
12. Micah 4:1-13
13. Zephaniah 3:8-13
14. Zechariah 12:6-14
15. Zechariah 14:3-21
16. Matthew 25:31-46
17. Acts 1:3-7, esp. v. 3
18. Romans 11:1-6
19. Romans 11:11-12, 25-32
20. Revelation 20:7-10
21. Deuteronomy 30:1-10, and note the general nature of this promise that is comes into play multiple times throughout history

At various times throughout the message, I asked some key questions:

• Have these conditions been seen or not in Israel after the exile and return?
• Do these conditions sound like spiritualized or allergorized prophecies or literal ones?
• Does it sound like a church of Gentiles and Jews could replace Israel in the fulfillment of these promises?
• Do Israel's works merit God's restorative favor? But does God grant favor based on works?

The answer to the last question ought to spur some serious thinking about the failure of Israel to obey the first covenant and how that affects their long-range prospects. Obviously, individual or national works can never merit God's favor. God sets His favor on whomever He wills. We believe, based on the numerous texts cited above and others, that He will grant grace to Israel despite their failures, just as God has set His favor upon all true Christians despite their failures.

In my previous post on this subject, I mentioned two texts that indicated an upcoming change in the way God dealt with the nation of Israel. One was Deuteronomy 18:15, and the other was Psalm 110:4. The first promises another prophet and the second promises another priest. Particularly with the priest, there had to be a change of the divine law, because the new priest would not be from the line of Aaron.

There is another key text that must be considered because it indicates a major change in the "constitution." It is Jeremiah 31:31-34. Here, the Bible promises another covenant. It is not like the covenant that God made with Israel in the days of Moses. Israel broke that covenant, and God, by so saying here in Jeremiah, shows us that He is pleased to set it aside in favor of something new and better.

This new covenant is the subject of extensive revelation in the Hebrew Bible, as well as in the New Testament. Jesus Himself said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22:20 NKJV).

Certainly God made provision for changing His dealings with mankind from the old Mosaic covenant, with a new prophet and a new priest and a new covenant. We Christians are convinced that this program change centers around Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Stay tuned...

I'm writing this with my Jewish friends in mind...

In a founding document such as a constitution, it seems prudent to have a mechanism by which the document can be updated to reflect changes in circumstances or conditions previously unforeseen by the authors of the document. Such changes will necessarily reflect modifications in the rule of conduct of the people who are under the sway of the founding document, whether it is an organization, a church, or an entire nation.

A similar amendment mechanism is found in the Bible. Amendments to the code given in the Bible are not required due to the author's lack of foresight (God knows everything past, present, and future). But we can easily imagine a scenario where God has a pre-planned change in mind that would require a change or update to the founding documents.

I am thinking about the Law of Moses as the founding document of the ancient nation of Israel. That Law formalized the organization of the nation in civil, ceremonial, and moral aspects. A Jewish reader of that document has to take seriously the fact that there are provisions within the document itself that allow the founding document to be updated. The point is that the Jewish person should not only not be surprised at such an update (aka the New Testament), but he should expect that an update was pre-planned, and be looking for it.

What texts in the Hebrew Bible indicate a future change? Here are two:

Deuteronomy 18:15 says that there will be another prophet that will arise like Moses, and that this prophet must be obeyed. A prophet like Moses would be expected to bring new revelation from God, thus potentially changing the way in which people live.

Psalm 110:4 says that there will be a new priest in the order of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20). A new priest would mean that a change in the law would be necessary so that he could operate lawfully within the nation, since no priest was permitted by Moses outside of the tribe of Levi. Such is the argument of Hebrews 7:11-19.

In both of these cases, provision is made in the initial "constitution" of Israel that permit that constitution to be changed. But this is nothing new. In fact, the law itself was a change on the previous status quo, in which there was various revelation and instruction passed down from Adam and Eve, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and others. The Law gave a new body of instructions that required obedience. It was different than the rule of life previously. No one accuses God, on account of His giving of the Law, of changing the rules midway through the game. He used His divine prerogative to change the constitution at a key point in time. He did not give up that prerogative when the Law of Moses was written down.

Undoubtedly some readers may agree that provisions are present in the Law for its own update and even perhaps its own replacement. However, those readers might object that they are still looking for the update, that the update is definitely not the New Testament, and that Jesus is not the updater of the Law of Moses. The answer to that objection will have to wait until a later post.

The question is basically this: does Acts 3-4 constitute a second offer of the kingdom, after Jesus' first offer during His public ministry? Alva McClain in his excellent work The Greatness of the Kingdom promotes the reoffer view (pages 403-406).

I am not convinced that Acts 3-4 constitute a second offer of the kingdom. I will state my objections to the re-offer view, then address some supporting arguments for the re-offer view. Before doing that, however, I will note that this is a tertiary if not a quaternary theological issue. For this debate to even make sense, you first have to be a Christian, and a dispensationalist as well. We should not be fighting over this issue :-)

First, my objections.

1. It is does not seem clear when reading the text of Acts 3 and 4 that an offer of the kingdom is being given. In other words, the audience hearing Peter preach would probably not connect what he is saying with an immediate coming of the kingdom. I grant that the audience and disciples believed a kingdom would be coming in the future (Acts 1:6) but Jesus had quelled at least the disciples' high hopes (1:7) and focused them on the Great Commission (1:8). Instead of the Israelite conversion meaning immediacy of the kingdom, I would argue that the Israelite conversion was necessary to the kingdom. This necessity must be added to the necessity of at least some of the other people groups (1:8) being converted as well.

Now, I do grant that "repent and be converted so that times of refreshing may come" sounds a lot like "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." So, I can be sympathetic to the re-offer view. There is at least one major difference--the king is absent.

2. The recipients of the offer are not the "right" recipients in Acts 3, where the main support for the re-offer view is drawn. They are the hoi polloi (OK, the ho laos). Apparently the national leaders have to be involved in accepting the offer, and they are not involved until Acts 4. McClain counters that "men of Israel" means "the nation." It seems to me to be a general address that means "men who belong to Israel" not "listen up you whole nation of Israel."

3. We are agreed that Jesus did offer the kingdom to the nation in his first advent. They rejected it. There were several points of rejection along the way, with Matthew 12 being a major one and John 19:15 being another. The national religious leaders were intransigent (unwilling to change their views). This stubbornness was key in Jesus' declaration about the unpardonable sin. Technically that sin had to do with their attribution of Jesus' miraculous power to the Devil, but in reality it constituted a rejection of the king entirely. They were confirmed in a pattern of rejection. It could be that God gives them another offer of the kingdom...but given that they were (in the main) in this stubborn state, it seems more likely that the whole idea of offering the kingdom was dropped at this point. The kingdom will have to be imposed rather than willingly accepted (the Tribulation prompts their acceptance of it). We could get into the whole idea of God "giving over" the leaders to their sinfulness and whether they had a "second chance." I am a generous "second chancer" as long as the person is alive and breathing...but the fact is that they had rejected the offer before, and we see clearly that they continued in that same rejection through the book of Acts and geographically throughout the Roman empire in the synagogues.

4. Jesus declared that the kingdom would be taken from the present nation and it would be given to a nation bearing the fruits of it (Matthew 21:43). That second 'nation' is not another Gentile country, but rather a later rendition of the Jewish nation. The people in Acts 3-4 were the very same nation that crucified Christ (just a couple of months previously). It doesn't seem that a re-offer to the same people is in order after that promise from the Lord.

5. The phrase "so that times of refreshing may come" does not require an fulfillment that follows /immediately/ on the heels of their repentance. It certainly could, but it is not required.

6. The audience in Acts 3 is quite positively responsive. We could not say that everyone responded, but by Acts 4:4, the number of men who had responded positively was 5,000. With women and young people this number may have topped 15,000 people. That is a pretty good response, yet that apparently was not good enough for the kingdom to come.

7. The re-offer view does not give proper place to the church, which was predicted by Christ in Matthew 16 and 18. What I am thinking here is that with a re-offer just days after the ascension, that leaves very little time for the church age and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. It also does not do justice to the parable of Luke 19:11-27 where the nobleman goes on a long journey to a far country. The implication is that there is some time lapse between the first and second advents.

Some additional thoughts, not as well formed:

8. The re-offer view seems to suggest a continuance of the offer throughout the book of Acts. While the kingdom was waning and the church was waxing, the offer was dying off too. Were there three, four, five, ... offers of the kingdom? Was the offer valid until Acts 28? Can we call the "re-offer" view the "continuing offers" view?

9. With an offer in Acts 3, I wonder about the applicability of that passage to the modern era. Can I preach Acts 3 like I did on Sunday evening, or shall I explain that some of it does not apply today?

10. Finally, for now, another issue is John 3. Jesus opened the door to the kingdom for those who were born again. We have that same hope today...just not /immediately/ upon receipt of the initial gifts that come with salvation.

Now I address some of the arguments for the re-offer view.

1. Theological argument. I appreciate the construction of theological cases for or against certain propositions, but this one is not convincing to me vis-a-vis the Biblical text. For instance, the assertion that "miracles are always associated with the kingdom" has a measure of truth to it, but I just cannot find a proposition in special revelation that supports it that strongly.

2. Waning of miracles. The gradual phasing out of miracles supposedly relates to the decline of the kingdom in Acts, since miracles and the kingdom are closely connected. It just seems to me that the kingdom was put on hold at the crucifixion, the Great Commission was active, the canon was being established, and the waning of miracles corresponded to the establishment of the canon rather than the decline of the kingdom. This has to do with the authenticating function of the miracles for the messengers of God (cf. Hebrews 2:4 and surrounding context). The fact that Paul could not heal Trophimus or Epaphroditus, or even himself, shows us nothing about the re-offer of the kingdom. It simply says that God was not pleased to extend the miracle of healing to every case of sickness. In fact, we know God had good reasons for not healing Paul; and He possibly healed Epaphroditus through normal means rather than miraculous ones.

3. Some of McClain's arguments are pretty persuasive, I admit. However, I do not think that the regal character of the Abrahamic covenant is very clear (p. 405 bottom). Neither is the prediction of the reoffer of the kingdom in Matthew 22:1-7 (p. 406 middle). The latter seems pretty remote. Neither is his argument about waning miracles in Acts (see above, and p. 409). Finally, I am not convinced by his statement that the gospel miracles would be sufficient proof for all time (p. 410 bottom), for the very reason that the apostles could plausibly use some further divine authentication now that Jesus was absent, to authenticate the new and different nature of their ministry. His argument fails to account for the miracles done around the Mediterranean by Paul.

As I complete my thinking on the subject for the moment, I caution myself that any single unifying theme has its limitations. Whether it is covenant, or kingdom, the interpreter can fall into danger if he or she interprets everything in light of that one theme, and may end up finding things that are not really there.

Some interpreters have suggested that the text in Genesis 12:1-3 is not a statement of the Abrahamic Covenant (AC) because it does not use the Hebrew covenant word "berit." The covenant is given in Genesis 15, which does use the special term.

When I heard this interpretation some years ago, I was skeptical because I had been taught otherwise. To be sure, when I initially heard this interpretation, I did not consider the omission of the key covenant term. I recently have been preaching through Hebrews and the subject of the AC arose at Hebrews 6:13-15. Someone asked me a question after the sermon about this interpretive issue.

After having re-studied the issue (see below), it seems that there are overwhelming grounds to understand that in Genesis 12:1-3, God initially grants the promises of the AC to Abram. These promises consist of national, personal, and international provisions. The national promises include a reference to a land which we know as the promised land. Some of the provisions have been fulfilled, in particular, the personal provisions to Abraham. The national and international provisions are in process of fulfillment and/or are awaiting their full realization.

There are three key reasons why I believe the AC is initially granted in Genesis 12:1-3.

1. Promissory nature of Genesis 12:1-3.

The AC is a unilateral promise of God to grant certain blessings to Abraham, his seed, and the nations of the earth. The language of Gen 12 seems to have a strongly promissory atmosphere about it. Since the covenant is almost completely, if not entirely, unilateral, it is reasonable to see a one-sided giving of the covenant with no “cutting” mentioned between parties as being a legitimate giving of the covenant promises.

2. Verbal and conceptual similarities of Genesis 12:1-3 with the other AC texts.

The following table shows the data used to establish this argument.

Genesis 15:18 uses the covenant term “berit” so it seems that this chapter marks the official “cutting of the covenant.” The close associations between this text and Genesis 12:1-3 substantiate that 12:1-3 is at least somehow related to the AC, if not the initial granting of it as I understand.

Genesis 17 uses the term “covenant” about 13 times.

The similarities of chapter 12 with the many clear references to the AC throughout Genesis weigh in favor of taking 12:1-3 as the initial offer or grant of the AC. It certainly demonstrates intent on God’s part to do things for Abraham that were included in the later “official” statements and reiterations of the covenant.

Some of the texts referenced above do not use the specific term “berit” in reference to the AC promises (Gen 13, 18, 22, 26, 27, 28, 35). But coming as they do historically after the giving of the covenant, it would seem to be a stretch to say they are not the covenant or restatements thereof. The use of “berit” should not be used as a determining factor as to whether the covenant is present; rather, the idea of the covenant is what is important.

Further, I do not believe that any passage in Genesis offers a more complete statement of the covenant than Genesis 12. The passages after Genesis 12 unfold one or two aspects of the covenant, but do not explicitly state them all.

3. NT Usage of Genesis 12:1-3.

Hebrews 6:13-15 refers to the oath-backed covenant; it is quoting specifically from Genesis 22:16-18.

I believe the strongest argument for seeing the AC in Gen 12:1-3 is that the NT quotations of the covenant in Acts 3:25 and Gal 3:8 refer to Genesis 12 and 18 and following chapters of Genesis, but they do not and cannot refer to Genesis 15 because that statement of the covenant does not include the specific portions about personal blessing, blessing and cursing, and all the families of the earth being blessed. Genesis 15 is primarily about the land and Abram’s inheritance of it. His descendants are also included in the promise, but the promise says nothing about the personal or international aspects of the covenant.

I just got a copy of David L. Allen's Hebrews commentary in NAC. I was interested in his take on Hebrews 6:1-3 since that is where I am preaching on Sunday. What caught my interest was his interpretation of the plural "baptisms" at verse 2.

Allen lists the following interpretations of the "baptisms" on pages 341-343:

1. Jewish ritual ablutions.
2. Differences between Jewish and Christian baptism.
3. Multiple events of people being baptized.
4. Purification ceremonies of a Jewish sort that probably would have been employed by Jewish Christians as well.
5. Teaching about the difference between Christian baptism and ritual washings.
6. Baptism of blood, that is, martyrdom.

Allen notes that in the early church, the fathers interpreted the passage as a reference to Christian baptism. In the modern era, commentators broaden the reference to Christian baptism and other washings.

I have interpreted the passage in a way different than all the options Allen lists. It seems to me most natural to interpret the plural baptisms to refer to the two important Christian baptisms given attention in the New Testament: water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism.

The normal emphasis in Christian teaching today is placed on water baptism. But the NT gave Spirit baptism at least as high of a place, if not higher. Note its important placement in texts such as Matthew 3:11, Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, and Galatians 3:27. Both baptisms, their meaning, and the distinction between them, would have been taught by the apostles to their converts. I could see the teaching also including the contrast with the baptism of John or other ritual Jewish baptisms, but primarily the two key Christian baptisms are in view.

Maybe I'm just weird to hold an interpretation that is not too common. I am a dispensationalist, so that might explain most of the weirdness!

Full disclosure: I have not read the whole commentary and cannot render an opinion on it.

Another thing is not a necessary part of the dispensational system of belief:

15. A particular study Bible or Bible version. I'm thinking here of the Scofield Reference Bible, in either the 1909 or 1917 KJV editions, the 1967 KJV edition with word changes, or the 1989 NKJV edition. I think some folks believe that dispensationalists are Scofield-carrying types. To be sure, some are. But that doesn't mean they embrace everything that Scofield taught. And, there are better study Bibles with better study notes and cross-references. An NIV Study Bible or ESV Study Bible (as strange as that may seem!) can be just as useful to the dispensationalist. So, don't let the study Bible or Bible version someone is carrying trick you.

Almost two years ago, I posted a list of things that are not necessary to the dispensational system of belief. In this post, I add one more that I ran into and had forgotten to call out in that post.

14. A particular view of Adam's headship in Romans 5. Many Dispensationalists believe that Adam's headship was of the realistic or seminal sort. In this view, when Adam sinned, humanity in him also sinned, and this sin then properly belongs to each individual in the race. However, there are others, like myself, who understand that Adam's headship was a representative or federal headship that resulted in the immediate imputation of Adam's sin to all of his posterity. Note what McCune writes in the second volume of his Systematic Theology: "It is sometimes suggested that this view assumes covenant theology and is, therefore, incompatible with Dispensationalism. There is, though, no necessary connection between this view and either system" (Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, volume 2, p. 79, fn. 24.).

Sam Storms provides an outline of the premillennial view here, though he is refuting it at each point because he is an amillennialist. But I thought a point-by-point response would be helpful for someone reading out there in web-land, so here goes. The listed items are his evaluation of what a premillennialist must believe. My comments follow each one.

• You must necessarily believe that physical death will continue to exist beyond the time of Christ's second coming.
  
  Correct. Isaiah 65:20 indicates that death will occur. Storms is not correct, though, in suggesting that a PM must necessarily believe in death for believers during that time. They may or may not die, depending on whether the Lord is pleased to heal their diseases or if they are born toward the latter part of the millennium. Death certainly does occur after the second coming when Christ judges the lost upon His return.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that the natural creation will continue, beyond the time of Christ's second coming, to be subjected to the curse imposed by the fall of man.
  
  Correct. Revelation 20:8 indicates that deception will happen, so the curse is still present.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that the New Heavens and New Earth will not be introduced until 1,000 years subsequent to the return of Christ.
  
  Right. Revelation 20:11 and 21:1 seem to form a sequence, and 20:11 occurs after the devil was thrown into the lake of fire, which 20:7 says occurred after the 1000 years were finished. The straightforward reading of the text leads to Storms' conclusion.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that unbelieving men and women will still have the opportunity to come to saving faith in Christ for at least 1,000 years subsequent to his return.
  
  No problem here. See Isaiah 11:9-10. I don't understand why Storms writes, "Are Premillennialists asking us to believe that upon their attaining to an age when they are capable of understanding and responding to the revelation of God and the personal, physical presence of Christ Jesus himself, that none of them will be given the opportunity to respond in faith to the claims of the gospel?" That is, I don't understand his statement unless he is setting up a straw-man version of the PM argument. No PM that I know of ever said there would be no chance for unbelievers in the millennium. So, no, PMs are NOT asking you to believe that ridiculous statement. One key point about the millennium is precisely that many people WILL be saved! By the way, many came to Christ when he was on the earth the first time too.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that unbelievers will not be finally resurrected until at least 1,000 years subsequent to the return of Christ.
  
  You guessed it. This is right on. Revelation 20:5 says "The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended" (ESV). Again, a straightforward reading of the text seems to say just what Storms objects to.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that unbelievers will not be finally judged and cast into eternal punishment until at least 1,000 years subsequent to the return of Christ.
  
  Ditto above.
  
  Since Revelation 20 speaks about and is structured around the one thousand year period and mentions it six times, it seems quite a stretch to say there is NO one thousand year period. Sure, one might debate when Christ's coming is relative to that period of time, but to say that period does not exist is a too much of a stretch to take.

Previously, I mentioned four essential components of the Dispensational system of thought. If these are removed from the system, it ceases to be what it is.

One argument that has been used against Dispensationalism is that several of these points are not the exclusive property of Dispensationalism; therefore, it is invalid to use them as essential components, or as Ryrie said, the "sine qua non" of Dispensationalism.

From where I sit, this argument seems quite weak. For one thing, just because some truth is shared between two systems of thought does not mean that that truth cannot be essential to one of the systems. So, for instance, covenant premillennialism recognizes a distinction between Israel and the church. Or, covenant theology generally recognizes that the glory of God is a very important concept. But as I said, the fact that these truths are shared does not eliminate the essential nature of them for Dispensationalism.

For another thing, the sharing of various truths between two systems does not mean that the systems are indistinct. This is because each truth of the system is or should be interpreted in light of the other elements of that system. If we believe that truth coheres together and there is a certain consistency in our system of thought (as there should be if the system of thought at all reflects the Bible, which is totally consistent in itself because of its divine origin), then each part is affected by each other part. For example, Dispensationalism and Covenant theology both give an important place to the idea of covenants. However, Dispensationalism's emphasis on the four essentials I mentioned earlier make its approach to the covenants far different than in Covenant theology.

Thus, the essential components of Dispensationalism stand as essential and distinguishing characteristics of the system even though they or aspects of them are shared with Covenant theology.

In this post, I want to convey what is not entailed by the interpretive system called Dispensationalism. When I use the verb entail, I mean that there are certain things that do not follow from Dispensationalism as a logical consequence. These things are not necessary accompaniments or results of holding to Dispensationalism.

The main point I am making is this: if you hold Dispensationalism, you need not hold these other beliefs. Some Dispensationalists may have held these beliefs in the past, or may hold them today, but that does not impugn the basic integrity of the system. In other words, we cannot impute guilt to the system based on some of its adherents also holding to these positions which are not inherent parts of the system. So--Dispensationalism does not entail...

1. Different ways of salvation. Perhaps the most serious and simultaneously tiresome of all arguments leveled against Dispensationalism is that it teaches two ways of salvation: salvation by works in the Old Testament and salvation by faith in the New Testament. This argument has long ago been debunked, but I have had it brought up to me in very recent arguments against Dispensationalism. I will probably say more about this point later, but suffice it to say that Dispensationalism teaches ONE way of salvation in all times of history--sourced in God's grace, through conscious faith, on the basis of the substitutionary atonement accomplished in the cross-work of Jesus Christ.

2. A particular view of Spirit Indwelling. Some Dispensationalists have taught that the Spirit's indwelling in a believer could be lost or removed in times of divine chastisement, or that not all regenerated people were necessarily indwelt in the OT. However, there are other Dispensationalists who teach that the Spirit indwells all believers permanently in every age. Some Dispensationalists make a distinction between the OT and NT ministries of indwelling as to their extent or the particular benefits involved, but neither basic view is entailed by the system. The Dispensational approach does note distinctions in God's working in various ages, so it may be "spring-loaded" to find differences in more places than are actually there.

3. Exactly 7 Dispensations. Many Dispensationalists hold to 7 Dispensations. This author does as well. However, whether there are 8, 6, 5, 4, etc. is not inherent in the system itself. Of course, if you get down to 2 (OT and NT) then you likely are not a Dispensationalist.

4. Wooden literalism. Another worn-out argument against Dispensationalists is that they can only interpret the Bible according to a very stiff kind of literalism. I don't have any personal experience with Dispensationalists who are this way. Many seem to be able to find a lot of meaning in parables and other figures of speech (many times, they find more meaning than is actually there!). The fact is that many Dispensationalists work diligently to properly understand the various figures of speech and poetic parts of the Bible. Dispensationalists do not ignore the various forms and genres of the Scripture. Wooden literalism is not entailed by the system.

5. Easy believism. Dispensationalism does not entail a watered down view of the transformative power of God's grace. Nor does it require one to accept that faith is not necessarily followed by works, or that justification is not inevitably followed by sanctification. Just because some Dispensationalists view the doctrine of salvation this way does not mean that others do.

6. A particular view of Calvinism. You do not have to be a three-point Calvinist (or less) to hold to Dispensationalism. There are plenty of four- and five-point Calvinists who are also Dispensational (believe it or not!).

7. A particular view of the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon on the mount is relegated by some D's (my new shorthand for Dispensationalists) to only the kingdom dispensation in the future. This beloved passage of Scripture does arouse some emotions, to be sure, and its interpretation is not trivial, coming as it does at the end of the Law dispensation, when the Lord genuinely offered the Kingdom to Israel, and at the beginning of the age of Grace. However, many traditional D's find a great deal of application of the passage to the modern era.

8. A hypothetical atonement. Since I mentioned the offer of the Kingdom, I might as well also say that Dispensationalism does not require you to believe that such an offer makes the cross of Christ only an afterthought, or that it hypothetically could have been avoided. Nope--it was necessary for Christ to suffer, and then be glorified, in accordance with the OT prophets. No D I know of suggests that the Cross could have been avoided.

9. A mutilated Bible. Dispensationalism recognizes a great deal of continuity between the Dispensations, so one is not required to "snip sections out of the Bible and throw them away!"

10. That salvation is unimportant. Since Covenant theology emphasizes that the program of history is centered around the salvation of man, it is easy to overlook that D's recognize a VERY IMPORTANT place for the salvation of man within God's eternal program. D's just want to remind us that the glory of God is the ultimate goal of all things--that all revolves around God, not ultimately around man.

11. That there are no covenants in the Bible. This is perhaps stating the case somewhat extremely, but Dispensationalists do believe the covenants--like the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants. The idea of covenant is important in the Scriptures. Again, D's believe that there are other issues that rise to a higher level of importance.

12. Zionism. This is a hot-button issue. D's do not uniformly give tacit approval to everything Israel does. Neither do D's uniformly say that Israel should have complete possession of the land today, particularly in the face of their rejection of God and Christ. Not all D's believe that we need to continue to give money to Israel to maintain blessings under the Abrahamic covenant. In other words, a "Zionistic" type of Dispensationalism exists, but it is not entailed in the system.

13. Sensus plenior, equivocal use of language, or prophetic double reference. There are a good number of D's who are committed to a literal hermeneutic that is associated with a univocal use of language, namely that a word means only one thing in a given context. There are many others who believe that double-meaning or some kind of fuller sense is found by the NT authors in their understanding of OT Scripture.

Well, that was a long list. To the point of my series, if you believe Dispensationalism is dead, it may be because you see it as a narrower system than it really is. I have a thought that Reformed theology may not be the greatest threat to Dispensationalism, for the very reason that there are some D's who are thoroughly reformed in their soteriology.

Our first order of business is to understand what Dispensationalism is. A good starting point in matters of definition is Charles C. Ryrie's book Dispensationalism. My discussion will largely reflect his text but will expand on it somewhat. There are four issues which are essential to the Dispensational view of the Scriptures. They are:

1. Consistent Literal Interpretation. In Dispensationalism, the Bible is interpreted according to the plain meaning of its text. Dispensationalism does not allegorize or spiritualize Old Testament prophecies that are, as yet, unfulfilled. It is not strictly literal in the sense that it allows for poetry, metaphors, similes, parables, hyperbole, other figures of speech, types and anti-types, and the like. A better term might be normal or plain. It is the basic historical/grammatical/theological approach to interpretation. The key point is that this hermeneutic is practiced consistently, insofar as humanly possible.

2. Progressive Revelation. This tenet points out that God gave revelation at various points throughout history. He did not give it all at once. Therefore, because man is unable to know God's mind apart from revelation (1 Corinthians 2:9-16), there are some things later in the Bible that earlier saints simply did not and could not know. For instance, they did not know the Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth. Their gospel proclamation did not include the facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of this Man. They did not know of the new institution called the Church. They also knew some things less clearly than we can now--the second coming of Christ, for instance, or the deity of Christ. Ryrie does not raise this point to a sine qua non but as a concept it seems so important to the system that it cannot be omitted.

3. Distinction between Israel and the Church. Dispensationalism makes clear that the Church does not replace Israel. Promises made to Israel that have not yet been fulfilled will still be fulfilled, in the manner portrayed in the Bible. We could treat this as a secondary point, since it is derived from the first point (literal hermeneutic). But it is such a point of distinction between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology that it is helpful to raise it to the level of a primary point to make sure there is no confusion. Ryrie writes that this issue is the most basic test to determine if one is a Dispensationalist (p. 39). It helps to define the meaning of the literal hermeneutic tenet mentioned earlier.

4. Purpose of God in History is His Own Glory. This is to say that everything else is subservient to that larger purpose. Some theologians object that this point of Dispensational thought is simply a reaction against the Covenant notion of the redemption of mankind being the ultimate purpose of history. But despite such an objection, the dispensational view here is not simply a denial cloaked in terms of an affirmation. Texts such as Ephesians 1:6, 12, and 14 make it clear that even salvation is intended to the end of bringing praise to the glory of God's grace (see also 2 Corinthians 4:15). Indeed, all Dispensationalists recognize that the redemption of man is a very important purpose of God, but it is only a part of the whole picture.

Ever since I talked to a pastor in Florida a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about the future of Dispensationalism. My title above was inspired by this pastor showing concern that the resurgence in popularity of Reformed theology may basically kill dispensational thought. In fact, he reported that Charles Ryrie, speaking at a Bible conference recently, said that the greatest threat to Dispensationalism is Reformed theology. Caution: This is not to say that if Dispensationalism dies it takes Christianity down with it--I'm not trying to raise Dispensationalism to the level of a fundamental of the faith! More on that later.

I have serious doubts about the death of Dispensationalism. I think that the concerns of its demise are greatly exaggerated, and hope to allay those concerns in future blog entries by defining and commenting on it. That said, I am concerned that the Dispensationalism be better understood. In many circles, it is greatly misunderstood. Many have not even heard of it, despite it being taught for several generations within fundamental and evangelical circles in the United States through schools like Dallas Theological Seminary and Grace Theological Seminary, not to mention many others. Antagonists who hold to a Covenant approach to the Bible often have such a skewed view of what Dispensationalism is and what it is not that they cannot possibly make an objective analysis of it. Even Dispensationalists misunderstand the genius of the system and think that many other doctrines necessarily rise or fall with it. I will justify these comments in later posts.

Let me also comment on two examples that show that Dispensationalism could be more rigorously promoted. The first is the school I've attended and taught at, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. It is dispensational in the traditional sense of the term (as opposed to progressive dispensational), and this is commendable. And while Dispensationalism is sprinkled throughout the curriculum and is treated some in the systematic and hermeneutics courses, two key courses, Dispensationalism and the Kingdom of God, are taught in summer school and as a result many students do not take them. As a result, students can graduate and lack more in-depth training that would be helpful to respond to the progressive dispensational view and the covenant view. To be sure, DBTS is not about duplicating theological robots, but that does not mean it must not confidently promote a certain form of doctrine. This is not to lay blame, but just to make an observation--after all, the curriculum at DBTS is packed and it is hard to decide between many necessary courses in the M.Div. program.

A second example is the IFCA International. A recent Voice magazine (May/June 2007) mentioned some issues in Dispensationalism. Another pastor integrally involved in the IFCA in Michigan told me of concerns in the fellowship that, though Dispensationalism is part of their doctrinal basis, many pastors of IFCA churches are not versed in it and it seems to be on the wane. Thus, even a fellowship dedicated to promoting this approach to the Bible is weakening in it.

Please feel free to send me comments on this and other future posts here.

A careful reader pointed out that the preterist view is not "one size fits all." There are "full" preterists and "partial" preterists. The latter are more common. The website http://www.therefinersfire.org/preterism.htm has a couple of helpful paragraphs on this.

So, in the previous entry on this topic, I started from the end of Revelation and began to work backward. We definitively showed that chapters 21 and 22 are yet future. This makes the full preterist view completely untenable. I had also continued working back to chapter 20 and showed that the imprisonment of Satan has not yet occurred. This alone would seem to negate the partial preterist view, if it takes Rev. 20 as already fulfilled or at least being fulfilled in the church age. But furthermore, the kingdom, of whatever length you take it to be, has not happened either. One might argue that Christ is reigning in his kingdom now, but it is hard to find resurrected saints reigning with Him anywhere. Finally, the Great White Throne judgment has not yet occurred.

We briefly stated last time also that Revelation 19 refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is manifestly Him who alone can be called "Faithful," "True," and "The Word of God." Orthodox believers confess that a fundamental of the Christian faith is the second coming of Christ. Normal interpretation of the words of this passage show it refers to the second coming. It can be correlated with Matthew 24:29-31. It seems so obvious as to not need stating that Christ has not yet returned. I can only conclude that Rev. 19 refers to events yet future.

The preterist interpreter may quibble with some of these points, or may bring up others such as the marriage supper or other events that he thinks happened already. But so far, all the major events point to future fulfillment. It is safe to conclude that God is painting a picture through John of what He has decreed for the end of times.

The preterist view of Revelation basically teaches that most, if not all, of the book of Revelation was fulfilled in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. There are several sources that the reader may visit to become more familiar with this view:

• http://www.gotquestions.org/preterist.html
• http://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

There are a number of severe problems with this interpretation of Revelation. The first is that it depends on a very particular date of composition. If Revelation was composed by the apostle John after 70 A.D., as many conservative scholars understand, then the preterist view falls apart. A date of 68 A.D. or so must be assigned for the preterist view to be viable.

The second major problem is that there are parts of the book which are unequivocally predictive of future events--events which have not yet occurred as of the writing of this blog. Consider a couple of them in the following paragraphs. We will work backwards from the end of the book.

Chapters 21 and 22 are unquestionably future predictions that have not yet been fulfilled. The new heaven and new earth have not yet made an appearance. The New Jerusalem has also not been seen as of yet. The elimination of death, sorrow, crying, and pain in 21:4 has obviously not yet occurred. We have not yet been spared from everything that defiles or causes a lie or has to do with unbelievers (21:27). No church on earth has those qualities, much less the world at large. Chapter 22 follows chronologically after chapter 21 and explains the presence of the tree of life, another thing which has not yet come to pass.

Moving backward from chapter 21, we see also many features of chapter 20 that prohibit it from being interpreted as a record of now-past events. Satan does not seem to be bound in any way during the present age. However the 1000 years are understood, either literally or as a very long time, it is apparent that Satan has not been on any kind of severe restriction for that length of time. There is a first and second resurrection (the first is mentioned in 20:5b-6, the second in 20:5a and 20:12), yet there have been no mass resurrections of dead people in history up to this point. The Great White Throne judgment has not happened. When it does, something very serious will happen to the old heaven and earth (20:11). Also, many dead will stand before God and be judged. The unbelieving among them (it turns out that all who appear there will be unbelievers, but let us not get hung up on that point) will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (20:15). None of this has yet happened.

It should hopefully be fairly obvious that at least the last three chapters of Revelation cannot be correctly interpreted as having happened in the past. We will have to consider the other chapters of Revelation in another blog entry. But the reader might in the meantime consider that in chapter 19 Christ returns so that he can be present to reign in his kingdom in 20:4. The second coming of Christ has also not yet occurred, except in those systems of interpretation that suggest a secret coming at some past date. Such interpretations ring hollow when compared with the Revelation.

• http://www.gotquestions.org/preterist.html
• http://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

There are a number of severe problems with this interpretation of Revelation. The first is that it depends on a very particular date of composition. If Revelation was composed by the apostle John after 70 A.D., as many conservative scholars understand, then the preterist view falls apart. A date of 68 A.D. or so must be assigned for the preterist view to be viable.

The second major problem is that there are parts of the book which are unequivocally predictive of future events--events which have not yet occurred as of the writing of this blog. Consider a couple of them in the following paragraphs. We will work backwards from the end of the book.

Chapters 21 and 22 are unquestionably future predictions that have not yet been fulfilled. The new heaven and new earth have not yet made an appearance. The New Jerusalem has also not been seen as of yet. The elimination of death, sorrow, crying, and pain in 21:4 has obviously not yet occurred. We have not yet been spared from everything that defiles or causes a lie or has to do with unbelievers (21:27). No church on earth has those qualities, much less the world at large. Chapter 22 follows chronologically after chapter 21 and explains the presence of the tree of life, another thing which has not yet come to pass.

Moving backward from chapter 21, we see also many features of chapter 20 that prohibit it from being interpreted as a record of now-past events. Satan does not seem to be bound in any way during the present age. However the 1000 years are understood, either literally or as a very long time, it is apparent that Satan has not been on any kind of severe restriction for that length of time. There is a first and second resurrection (the first is mentioned in 20:5b-6, the second in 20:5a and 20:12), yet there have been no mass resurrections of dead people in history up to this point. The Great White Throne judgment has not happened. When it does, something very serious will happen to the old heaven and earth (20:11). Also, many dead will stand before God and be judged. The unbelieving among them (it turns out that all who appear there will be unbelievers, but let us not get hung up on that point) will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (20:15). None of this has yet happened.

It should hopefully be fairly obvious that at least the last three chapters of Revelation cannot be correctly interpreted as having happened in the past. We will have to consider the other chapters of Revelation in another blog entry. But the reader might in the meantime consider that in chapter 19 Christ returns so that he can be present to reign in his kingdom in 20:4. The second coming of Christ has also not yet occurred, except in those systems of interpretation that suggest a secret coming at some past date. Such interpretations ring hollow when compared with the Revelation.