Dispensational Interpretation

[Robert Cragg]

I personaly do not see anything wrong with dispensationist, to me it helps me more in interpretation especially in Revelation, can anyone explain why so many people are against it?

[Faith]

Robert,

I believe that's the 'only' way to understand the Bible...

For those who don't understand what 'dispensations' is:

A dispensation is an era of time during which man is tested in respect to obedience to some definite revelation of God's will.

Since I'm pre trib, I believe there are seven dispensations.

Innocence: Man was created innocent, set in an idea environment, placed under a simple test and warned of the result of disobedience.

Conscience: By an act of disobedience man came to an experiential knowledge of good and evil.

Driven out of Eden and placed under the Adamic covenant, man was accountable to do all known good and to abstain from all known evil and to come before God by sacrifice.

Human Government: The Noahic Covenant after the Flood put man under a new test by human government.

Man is reponsible to govern the world for God.

Promise: This era went from the call of Abraham to the giving of the Mosiac Law.

This dispensation was under the Abrahamic covenant and was exclusively Israelite.

Law: This era reaches from Sinai to Calvary

Grace: This period began with the death and resurrection of Christ.

The point of testing is no longer legal obedience to the Law as a condition of salvation but acceptance or rejection of Christ with good works as the fruit of salvation.

The Kingdom:The establishment of the kingdom covenanted to David.

This will include Israel's restoration and conversion and rehabilitation as a high-priestly nation in fellowship with God as head over the Mill nations.

Dispensation can be called 'ages',and the Bible clearly speaks of 'the age to come...'

That's why I will only use a 'Scoffied' Bible....

I think people are 'scare' of it,and sometimes, we can be 'label.'

Thanks Cragg....

[anath]

I agree with y'all

[Robert Cragg]

Robert,

I believe that's the 'only' way to understand the Bible...

For those who don't understand what 'dispensations' is:

A dispensation is an era of time during which man is tested in respect to obedience to some definite revelation of God's will.

Since I'm pre trib, I believe there are seven dispensations.

Innocence: Man was created innocent, set in an idea environment, placed under a simple test and warned of the result of disobedience.

Conscience: By an act of disobedience man came to an experiential knowledge of good and evil.

Driven out of Eden and placed under the Adamic covenant, man was accountable to do all known good and to abstain from all known evil and to come before God by sacrifice.

Human Government: The Noahic Covenant after the Flood put man under a new test by human government.

Man is reponsible to govern the world for God.

Promise: This era went from the call of Abraham to the giving of the Mosiac Law.

This dispensation was under the Abrahamic covenant and was exclusively Israelite.

Law: This era reaches from Sinai to Calvary

Grace: This period began with the death and resurrection of Christ.

The point of testing is no longer legal obedience to the Law as a condition of salvation but acceptance or rejection of Christ with good works as the fruit of salvation.

The Kingdom:The establishment of the kingdom covenanted to David.

This will include Israel's restoration and conversion and rehabilitation as a high-priestly nation in fellowship with God as head over the Mill nations.

Dispensation can be called 'ages',and the Bible clearly speaks of 'the age to come...'

That's why I will only use a 'Scoffied' Bible....

I think people are 'scare' of it,and sometimes, we can be 'label.'

Thanks Cragg....

If you want you can call me Rob.
I agree with your answer.

[Perpetua]

I personaly do not see anything wrong with dispensationist, to me it helps me more in interpretation especially in Revelation, can anyone explain why so many people are against it?

I agree, dispensationalism is what the Bible teaches, the best way to understand prophecy and Old Testament writings.

See this link, "25 Stupid Reasons for Dissing Dispensationalism," in which the author (Dan Phillips) points out the most common 25 "reasons" why people hate dispensationalism -- and the proper response to those reasons. I have personally observed people who come up with some of these "reasons" to reject dispensationalism.

Biblical Christianity: Twenty-five stupid reasons for dissing dispensationalism

[open door]

I love what Clarence Larkin had to say about it "If God put Moses and the Law in one dispensation, and Christ and Grace in another, let man not join together what God put asunder".

[Faith]

People that do not believe in 'dispensations' still put Law in Grace....

Causes mass confusion...

[mattfivefour]

"The key to Dispensationalism is the total distinction between Israel and the Church, and thereby, Law and Grace ... J. N. Darby systematized scriptural Dispensationalism; C.I. Scofield made it accessible by his Reference Bible; and L. S. Chafer presented it on the seminary level. Each of these leaders faithfully sought to establish and maintain complete separation of Israel and the Church, Law and Grace, as the heart and life of Classic Pauline Dispensationalism." —Miles J. Stanford


"Every covenant, promise and provision for Israel is earthly, and they continue as a nation on the earth when it is created anew. The Church continues in heavenly citizenship when the heavens are recreated ... Christianity is totally opposite to Judaism and any mixture of the two must result in the loss of all that is vital in the present plan of Salvation. One made its appeal to the limited resources of the natural man and conditioned his life on the earth; the other sets aside the natural man, secures a whole new creation in Christ Jesus, and counsels that new being in his pilgrim journey to his heavenly home." —Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer


"It was a tragic hour when the Reformation churches wrote the Ten Commandments into their creeds and catechisms and sought to bring Gentile believers into bondage to Jewish law, which was never intended either for the Gentile nations or for the church." —Donald Grey Barnhouse


"The difference between this present dispensation and that of the millennium is very distinct. The Christian is now joined to Him and is one spirit with Him. Since I am united to Him, He is my Life; “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). “The life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Here I have died, and my life is hid with Christ in God. The future earthly kingdom saint will live here on earth, but he will not be united to the Lord Jesus, he will not be dead to the flesh and the world, and he will be a man living in all the commandments and ordinances of the law blameless.

"This then is a great difference--the heavenly saint has a standing of complete deliverance from the man in the flesh; while the millennial saint will be through grace empowered by the Spirit to do what God requires of man in the flesh. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people” (Heb. 8:10).

"Again, the way into the Holiest of All is now made manifest. We--the heavenly believers--have “boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus...that is to say, His flesh” (Heb. 10:19, 20). The earthly millennial saint, though cleansed from his sins by the Blood, cannot speak of being inside the veil, because his dispensation is connected with this earth. If we admit that our position as worshippers is inside the veil, we must admit another great difference between a heavenly and an earthly saint.

"One more difference is to be noticed: the saint united to the Lord Jesus in heaven, knowing deliverance in Him and worshipping in the Holiest of All, has a place in heaven prepared for him by the Lord Jesus Christ, which the earthly kingdom saint never could have. True, he can speak of knowing the Lord of heaven and earth, and eventually he will be in the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, when all things are made new; but he cannot speak of having a place prepared for him in the Father’s house, and still less speak of being raised up together with Christ, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6).

"Thus we see the difference in doctrine between the heavenly and the earthly saint. First, the connection with Christ is different, the saints during His rejection being united to Him in heaven, a privilege not known by, nor granted to, any other class of saints--neither to OT saints, nor the millennial saints." —J. Butler Stoney


"Church truth, the new, is totally different from Judaistic truth, the old; and it was not fully revealed until after the Cross, via Paul.

"OT salvation has nothing to do with Church salvation; they are two different spheres. And there is no need to "preserve the NT [Church] necessity of explicit knowledge and trust of Christ for eternal salvation" except for the Christian, and that only during the Church dispensation.

"Other dispensations do not require the same content of faith that is necessary for Church salvation. What was required was commensurate to the salvation involved at the time. Of course whatever faith content God supplies, all in every age is based upon the Cross.

"As for OT pre-Israel Gentiles, those who exercised faith in whatever truth God presented during their dispensation were saved. What little there may have been, and far removed from present-day Church requirements as it was, it was adequate for what they received--they will have a place in the Messianic Kingdom, and beyond.

"When it came to OT Israel, all the way up to Pentecost, their content of faith required was adequate for their Kingdom regeneration--a salvation as far removed from that of the Church as earth is from heaven.

"When it comes to the present-day billions throughout the world who have never yet heard the Gospel, we know that, still being in Adam, they are lost. And we know that the only content of faith in this dispensation is the Gospel of the grace of God in Christ--entrance into the Church.

"We also know that God is using the Church, in spite of much failure on her part, to evangelize the lost of the world, and by means of that evangel to call out from among the lost each and every elect member of the Body of Christ. There will not be one individual of His heavenly Bride missing at the time of the Rapture and the completion of His Body, which is the Church.

"If our Lord were to appear today with His rapturous shout for the Church, what of the unevangelized masses left behind? They will enter the Tribulation and at the end of those seven terrible years, those who remain, both Jews and Gentiles, will face the King. The Jews will see Him whom they had pierced, will repent and believe, and then the nation will be born in a day--into the Kingdom. For them it will be faith by sight, so to speak--but that content of faith will be adequate for their eternal Kingdom salvation.

"As for what remains of the Gentile nations of the earth, they will pass before the King to be separated as sheep from goats. The sheep, on His right hand, will be those whose content of faith was, evidently, to assist the Jews during their Tribulation tribulations--and they will enter the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The goats, on His left hand, who failed to assist Israel, will be assigned to everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

"The key to Pauline Dispensationalism is the complete separation between Israel and the Church--they are two different entities. Scripture makes it very clear as to the content of Israel's future New Covenant Kingdom salvation, with their iniquities cleansed, a new heart of flesh, the Spirit indwelling and enabling them to walk in the theocratic law written upon their hearts, living in the Millennial Kingdom in the land of their fathers, under the rule of the King.

"Dispensationalists are all too aware of these New Covenant, Israelite blessings, to the extent of seeking to appropriate those "spiritual" blessings unto the Church--the primary breakdown of separation of Israel and the Church.

"Why should a Christian--especially a dispensationalist who knows who and where he is in Christ--descend from his heavenly, Christ-centered position in the presence of the Father and grasp anything that belongs exclusively to future Israel? He is crucified, dead, buried, and ascended with Christ in the heavenlies, a citizen of heaven, and is already blessed with all spiritual blessings in those heavenly places in Christ.

"Being in union with the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ, the believer's life is hidden with Him in God--he has been made nigh by the Blood of Christ. When He returns to earth to establish His millennial Kingdom, to both judge Israel with the baptism of fire, and afterwards bless them via their New Covenant, every risen and glorified member of the Body of Christ, His Bride, will attend the Bridegroom/King to rule with Him forever over the earth.

"All of this and more is for the Church, none of which will ever be true of the recipients of Jesus' Kingdom Gospel--the Kingdom Jew. Different content of faith, different salvations resulting--but all based upon the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant; both eternal, and each different from the other. The heavenly Church needs to realize her unique positional peculiarity, her life in the glorified Lord Jesus Christ--in complete contrast to Israel and Kingdom salvation." —Miles J. Stanford

[Faith]

Matt, I don't think you left anything out...

You said it 'all~'

Amen!