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Podcast
Dispensationalism Matters
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0:00
Hi, I'm Dave DeWitt, and today I want to talk about why dispensationalism matters.
0:09
Admittedly, dispensationalism is a clumsy word, and it's an old word.
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It comes from the 1611 King James translation of Ephesians 1 10, that in the dispensation
0:21
of the fullness of time, he might gather together all things in Christ.
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The Greek word occurs nine times in the New Testament.
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The word is translated by the New American Standard Bible means manager or management
0:38
or stewardship or administration.
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I think administration is probably our key word here, the best word, so let's say a dispensation
0:47
is a distinguishable administration in the outworking of God's purpose.
0:54
The point is, God did not give the same instructions or laws to Adam that he gave to Noah or Abraham
1:01
or Moses or the apostles, so either you ignore the differences or become a dispensationalist
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or what a dispensationalist call a dispensationalist.
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First and foremost, there's something very foundational we need to understand about dispensationalism.
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It is only a product of taking the Bible literally, defined as the author's intended meaning.
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I'll say more about this shortly, but dispensationalism should not be defined without this understanding.
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Dispensationalism is not about predicting future dates.
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It's not about different ways of salvation.
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It's not about the rapture.
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It's all based on one thing, and that's a literal interpretation of the Bible defined
1:49
as the author's intended meaning.
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The second thing to understand about dispensationalism is why it's important.
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What are the practical expressions of dispensationalism?
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What difference does it make?
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Answer, there are two significant expressions of Christianity emphasized by the dispensationalists.
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First is inductive Bible study.
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It's dispensationalism that emphasizes the observation, interpretation, and application
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of the Bible.
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Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Covenant Protestant churches use a deductive method
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for reading the Bible.
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They bring their theological conclusions to the biblical text.
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It could be argued that everybody does that, but these other systems begin with their theology
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to the extent that in some cases they do not encourage people to study the Bible without
2:49
their clergy or a representation of their theology present.
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Only dispensationalism begins with inductive Bible study.
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The product of a dispensational approach is an emphasis on personal application of daily
3:05
Bible study.
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Second is personal evangelism and missions.
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Since before the Reformation, it was the predispensational element of Christianity, those with a consistently
3:19
literal interpretation of the Bible, who emphasized evangelism and missions.
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Evangelical missions have been connected to those with a view of the Bible that became
3:31
dispensationalism.
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The Anabaptists, the Moravian Brethren, the Great Awakening, the ministry of John and
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Charles Wesley, the ministry of William Carey, preaching of men like Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
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crusade evangelists like D.L. Moody, and campus evangelistic groups like the Navigators and
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Young Life all came from a perspective we call dispensationalism.
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Catholic Orthodox and Covenant theologies have not emphasized evangelistic missions,
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and today their ministry efforts are usually focused on fixing the world, not personal
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evangelism and discipleship.
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So dispensationalism is about personal Bible study and evangelism.
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Why should Christians be dispensationalists?
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Dispensationalism is not the last thing we will ever know about the Bible.
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Dispensationalism only represents our best understanding at this time.
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Isms and ologies are man-made and need to be improved as our understanding improves.
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One of the biggest objections to dispensationalism is that it's wrong because it's new, developed
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by J.N. Darby in the 1830s.
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For one thing, the idea of different administrations of God is not new.
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Many have recognized the need to divide the different ages of history.
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As to Darby's dispensationalism being new, the doctrine of the Trinity was new in the
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A.D. 300s.
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Augustine's definitions of sin, salvation, and the sovereignty of God were new in the
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A.D. 400s.
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When Thomas Aquinas tied faith to reason, it was new in the A.D. 1200s.
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When John Wycliffe said, the Bible, not the Church, is the source of all religious authority,
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it was new in the A.D. 1300s.
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The pre-Reformation teaching of John Hus was new in the A.D. 1400s.
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The Reformation was new in the A.D. 1500s.
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But why should all our understanding of the Bible stop with the A.D. 1500s or in the A.D.
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1830s?
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Question.
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Is that not what the cults do and liberals do, find something new in the Bible?
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The answer, no.
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The cults add to the Bible and the liberals take away from the Bible.
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They do not find something new in the Bible, as Christians done in the examples I gave
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above.
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Many of the early Church Fathers of the 2nd to the 5th centuries abandoned literal interpretation,
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especially the Old Testament and prophetic passages, because they saw literal interpretation
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as being Jewish.
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Literal interpretation dictated a future for Israel, and these early Fathers wanted to
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distance the Church from Judaism.
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Many were even anti-Semitic.
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This led to the allegorical interpretation of Origen, who died in 253, and the covenant
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amillennialism of Augustine, who died in 430.
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This allegorical method of interpretation was incorporated into the Roman Catholic and Eastern
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Orthodox Churches and brought into the Reformation era by John Calvin in the mid-1500s.
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But the Reformation was also fueled by the invention of the printing press in 1436, which
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put the Bible in the hands of the people, not just the clergy.
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And people who are not indoctrinated by a hermeneutical system always naturally take
7:21
what they read literally, again defined as the author's intended meaning.
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Dispensationalism was an inevitable historical development as people began to look at the
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Bible literally, with the author's intended meaning.
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After Darby introduced the concept, it was studied and taught and developed by people
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like Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, C. I. Scofio, Lewis Chafer, John Walvoord,
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and Charles Ryrie.
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As we move toward the end times and look at the Bible in a plain, ordinary, normal
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way, our understanding will improve.
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Dispensationalism should never be seen as a system imposed on Scripture, but a conclusion
8:05
derived from Scripture.
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The logical brain we're born with organizes the pieces of information we learn into some
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system that makes sense, that includes our theology.
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It's inevitable that we have this in mind as we come to any text of Scripture.
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But our first question about any text should not be what does our theology teach, but what
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does the author mean?
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If the author intended meaning does not confirm our theological assumptions, then our theology
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has to change.
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The dispensational claim that literal interpretation leads to dispensationalism, not that dispensationalism
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is an authority over the text.
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So what makes a person a dispensationalist?
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Well, Charles Ryrie gave us three essentials.
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Number one, a distinction between Israel and the church.
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Number two, consistent use of plain, ordinary, literal interpretation in studying the Scriptures.
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And number three, an understanding that the goal of history is the glory of God, not the
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salvation of man.
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Salvation of man is, of course, crucial because it brings glory to God.
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You may already be a dispensationalist.
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Every Bible-believing Christian who takes the Bible at face value is or is on their
9:34
way to becoming what we here call a dispensationalist, some without knowing it, and it's not important
9:41
that they know it.
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If you believe in Ryrie's three essentials, then you're what dispensationalists call
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a dispensationalist.
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For example, do you advocate putting to death everyone who does any work on a Saturday?
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Do you consider it a sin to wear clothing of two kinds of material mixed together?
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Do you keep a sabbatical year?
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Do you keep a jubilee year?
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Do you sacrifice a lamb in Jerusalem on Passover?
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If you do not do these things, then you're a dispensationalist.
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Lewis Schaeffer, who founded Dallas Seminary in 1924, said, if you do not take bulls and
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goats to an altar on Saturday, you're a dispensationalist.
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In conclusion, I end where I began.
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Jesuitism is not about predicting future dates, it's not about different ways of salvation,
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it's not about the rapture.
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It's about only one thing, a literal interpretation of the Bible, defined as the author's intended
10:46
meaning.
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The path to understanding the mind of God is understanding the biblical author.
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If you seek the biblical author's intended meaning, then you will become, if you're
10:58
not already, a dispensationalist.
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Thank you for listening.
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A longer paper on this subject, with additional references, is available on our website relationalconcepts.org.
