"Overview of Classic Dispensationalism - part 1" by Adam Boyd

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the call here this morning. Welcome to Strength to Strength. Blessing to be gathered with you from Papua New Guinea to Australia to other parts of the world, South America. We're very thankful to have Brother Adam Boyd with us this morning. And he's even on the call. He had said that the internet in his part of the world isn't very reliable, so he went ahead and did a recording ahead of time just in case his internet was down. And so we have that as a backup, but it's looking like so far he's got good internet, so we're thankful for that.

So before we get started here, let's just bow our heads for prayer. Father, thank you for this opportunity to be gathered here together in this way. Father, your mercies are new again this morning. The nature is just proclaiming your majesty all around us here, and we thank you.

And we are so undeserving of your love, of your kindness toward us. We're so thankful for your son Jesus and for the blood that cleanses us and gives us life. How our sins can be removed from the ends of the earth. And Father, as we were talking about, we're gathered here from the ends of the earth, but Scripture says that our sins were removed as far as the east is from the west.

And they're removed. And we're so thankful for that, Lord. And to think that we can come boldly to your throne and that you care about us and that you care about your body on earth. You're intimately involved. And Father, our desire really, as brothers and sisters, is to see your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And as we engage this topic here today, Father, I ask for humility, I ask for wisdom. And Father, most of all, that your name be glorified, that your gospel could be proclaimed, and that through this work, that there could be souls brought into your kingdom and brought into reconciliation with you.

So Father, we ask for your presence. Thank you, Lord. And go with us. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So yes, so Brother Adam is here with us. He's coming to us from Papua New Guinea.

I think it's almost 8 o'clock there in the evening. So he looks not too tired, looks a little better than the rest of us. But this afternoon, we'll get to flip the tables on him. It'll be 5 o'clock AM Sunday morning there and 3 o'clock PM here. So we'll get to, yeah, he'll get to experience what we're experiencing here this morning. But he said he's an early riser, so that shouldn't be a problem. So I met Adam and his wife, Martha, in 2019. My family and I were, Adam visited our congregation here.

And here he was interacting with different ones of us, some of it through All Nations Bible translation, and also some of it through the journey that Adam was on, the kingdom journey that he actually talked about here on Strength to Strength several months ago.

Back in 2016, God was doing a work in their lives, even his wife's life. And he was looking at Scripture and trying to figure out and understand what does a faithful representation of an ambassador of the kingdom of God look like on earth. And it took him on quite a journey. I would encourage you to go back and listen to that talk. I think we actually have it linked here on this webpage. And so since then, Adam and I have interacted on different spheres. And recently, in the last six months, I listened to a message or two that he had brought to a congregation in regards to this topic of dispensationalism and something that I care about.

And to understand correctly who we are, where we're at in God's plan here. And we asked Adam if he would come share this, and he agreed to it. And he's put a lot of time, a lot of thought into it, and a lot of preparation. So we're thankful for that. Just a couple of things about Adam. As you know, he's in Papua New Guinea. He's a Bible translator there, working with the Inga people. I understand he's coming towards the end of the translation, possibly wrapping this up in the next couple of months. Is that right, Adam? Yes, that's correct. Okay. So that's really exciting. And Adam has put his all into translation, into Bible translation.

And just for example, one thing I wanted to note here at the beginning, some of you might be interested in knowing this. Those of you, those of us who care about the textual streams of Scripture, Adam, I knew that Adam was working on the Greek text of Scripture, particularly the Byzantine text, which would be the stream where the text receptors is in. And he cares a lot about seeing us, seeing Bible translation and seeing us reading the Scripture from a very solid textual stream. And I asked him, I said, "Could I just make a little announcement at the beginning of this call about his work or what you're doing right kind of alongside your Bible translation?

You're also working on this New Testament textual stream." He said I could. And he sent me some wording here, a little bit about it, a little bit of update. And I'm just going to read it off. I really want to see what Adam is doing get publicized. And so I thought I would just read it off right in the beginning. And this is what he says. He said, "I'm working on a translation of the Byzantine text. I became interested in the Byzantine text after reading Dr. Morris Robertson's essay, The Case for the Byzantine Priority.

Two key facts. First, the critical text, which is the critical text is the textual stream that a lot of the newer translations today are using." He says, "So first, the critical text has at least 105 verses in the New Testament that have no support in any Greek manuscript when the verse is considered as a whole. I find this to be completely unacceptable. Second, the text's receptors was originally compiled on the basis of only seven manuscripts.

So even though the text's receptors is generally Byzantine, it is not best representative of the Byzantine text form." And so he says, "We're translating the Inga New Testament from this textual stream or the Robertson and Pierpont's Byzantine textual stream."

But he goes on to say that he's publishing, he's taking this Greek text that he's using for the translation of the Inga and putting it into English and publishing it in three different editions. The first is a standard edition with the English text. The second is a text critical edition with text critical footnotes, noting all the translatable differences with a variety of editions of the Greek New Testament. This edition will include manuscript percentages for some of the variants. For example, it will show that 92.6% of the manuscripts include the last line of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:13. The translation I am working on will be somewhere between the New King James Version and ESV, when you think about the form versus thought.

And the NIV, CSV, as far as how literal it is. It will be translated and styled as reminiscent of the Tyndale King James Legacy. So Brother Adam, I'm really looking forward to seeing that when that's available, which will be available later this fall. And so if anyone's interested in knowing more about this, Adam would love to talk about it. And so we'll be happy to get you his contact information.

So thank you for letting me talk about that at the beginning here. And I know it's really been a part of Adam's life the last couple of years. I know he has different reviewers as well, looking over his shoulder as he's doing this.

So let's jump in. The title for today, for this event, is called the, let's see here, The Dangers of Dispensationalism. And the talk this morning will be looking at an overview of what is classical dispensationalism. And as I thought about the vision of Strength to Strength, it is to advance Jesus' kingdom by tackling thought-provoking topics. And as I thought about advancing Jesus' kingdom, we know that doctrine is at the center of that. Doctrine does matter, and it does affect us practically. And I believe this doctrine does have an effect, an adverse effect on the church today. And so I'm excited to see Brother Adam being willing to engage this. So God bless you, Brother Adam, as you dig into this, and it's all yours.

Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you all this morning. And Brian, before I start, remind me of the time. What are we looking at as far as time? Sure. So typically we wrap up, we say at 7 o'clock, but often it goes to 7:15.

Okay. But in light of us meeting this afternoon, we won't have much Q&A at the end of this. We'll kind of wrap it right down. And then this afternoon, after your talk, we'll open up for a Q&A, which, by the way, we didn't note here.

With our events, we do those differently than our typical just regular talks. We ask for questions ahead of time, and then we just have a moderator pose those questions. And so we've already had numerous questions come in via email and other ways that we have for this afternoon. But for the group that's listening here this morning, this afternoon, you can submit your questions via the chat button as we go along. But like I said, we won't have much Q&A at the end of this.

We'll end the call and then have more of that this afternoon after the call. Okay. That's good. That'll work out well with what I've already planned, so. Okay. Great. If that's the case, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on introduction. I'm just happy to be here. And I think we'll just go ahead and dive right into the topic because it's a very complex topic. And I think we'll just get right into it because we don't have a lot of time to waste.

Let me share my screen here.

Does everybody see that all right?

Yes, we can see that well. Okay. So yes, we're talking about the dangers of dispensationalism. And this first part, as Brian mentioned, is an overview of classic dispensationalism. And I'm going to start off with a few disclaimers. This is sort of my introduction. This is why I wanted to go ahead and dive right in. First, I am not an expert on dispensationalism. And so there's probably some of you listening today or tuning in today that know more about this topic than I do. And so if I say anything that's incorrect or misleading, please feel free either at the end of this session or at the end of the next session to correct me. You won't offend me if you say, "You know what?

That wasn't quite right. It's really more like this." I will not be offended by that. And I would welcome that sort of feedback. So please don't be shy about helping me as well to learn more about this topic.

Second, there are many forms of dispensationalism. We are just going to be talking about one of them, which is classic dispensationalism. But as we talk, just keep in mind that dispensationalism, what we're going to talk about in this session, it's actually much broader than what we're going to cover. We're going to cover one particular form. And it's probably the most influential form. So it's really a good one to focus on. But it doesn't mean that every dispensationalist believes everything that we're going to present today.

And as I said, the primary focus is on classic dispensationalism. There's also revised dispensationalism, progressive dispensationalism. We're not going to really touch those.

Also, I will not be delving into detailed interpretation of prophecy. There's just not time to do that. And I'm probably not the best person to do that anyway. So if you're hoping for very detailed interpretations, we're not going to get into that in this session or in the next session. Finally, as a disclaimer, much of what I'm going to share is taken from Benjamin L. Merkel's book, Discontinuity to Continuity: A Survey of Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies. And so if this presentation piques your interest and you want to learn more, particularly about some of the other forms of dispensationalism, that's a great book to look at. It really is just trying to present what these different theologies believe without really critiquing or supporting them.

And so I found it to be a very helpful book. All right. With those disclaimers out of the way, let's jump right into the question. What is dispensationalism? If you're anything like me, the first time you heard dispensationalism, you're like, "What in the world does that mean?" That is a strange term. And it's not something that we hear and then immediately say, "Oh, it must mean this." It requires some definition.

So first, we'll start with definitions of dispensation. What is a dispensation? First, just general definitions. I've taken these two definitions from just general English dictionaries. Okay. The first definition, a dispensation is a general state or ordering of things.

That's one definition. A second definition, it's a system of order, government, or organization of a nation, community, etc., especially as existing at a particular time. Now, here we could talk about two dispensations in American history to help understand this term. We could talk about the colonial dispensation, and then we could talk about the self-governing dispensation if we're talking about the history of the United States. The colonial dispensation would be the time when the system of order or government was under the King of England. And America was colonies composed of colonies that were under the government of the King of England. Then we could talk about the self-governing dispensation, which would be after the Revolutionary War in America, where America was no longer under the government of the King of England but was its own self-governing nation.

So we could talk about two dispensations in American history just using the term dispensation in general. So that's in general what a dispensation is. Now, let's look at a theological definition. And again, this is just taken from a standard English dictionary.

It defines dispensation in a theological sense as a divinely ordained order prevailing at a particular period of history, a divinely ordained order prevailing at a particular period of history. In other words, it's an order, or we could even say a government that God has set up for a particular period of history.

Now, let's look at how dispensationalists define the word dispensation. We'll look at a couple of them here. The first is by Cyrus Schofield. He defines dispensation as a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God. So God reveals part of His will to man. And within a dispensation, that's a particular time in which man is tested regarding his obedience to whatever God has revealed.

All right. Craig Blazing defines a dispensation as a particular arrangement by which God regulates the way human beings relate to Him. So dispensation is a particular way that God is dealing with mankind at a particular period in history.

Now, let's look at dispensationalism. We looked at dispensation. Let's look at definitions of dispensationalism.

Again, these are just general definitions from English dictionaries. Dispensationalism is a belief in a system of historical progression as revealed in the Bible, consisting of a series of stages in God's self-revelation and plan of salvation. So it's stages through history in which God is revealing Himself and the plan of salvation.

Another definition, adherence to or advocacy of a system of interpreting history in terms of a series of God's dispensations. I always love it when you look up a word like dispensationalism, and then in the definition, they use the word dispensation. And you're like, "Well, that doesn't really help."

But you get just a quick look there, advocating a system of interpreting history in a series of dispensations. We already talked about what a dispensation is, a system of governing or ordering society. Now, the last definition is from Wikipedia. And I don't fully endorse everything that Wikipedia has to say. We have to take things that Wikipedia says with a grain of salt. But I found this definition to be helpful. So Wikipedia defines dispensationalism as a particular hermeneutic or analytical system for interpreting the Bible based on a literal translation and which stands in contrast to the earlier Calvinist system of covenant theology used in biblical interpretation.

Okay. So we see a couple of things here. It's a hermeneutic or a way of interpreting the Bible. It's based on literal translation. It stands in contrast to the Calvinist system. And so those are some key points that the Wikipedia definition brings out.

Now, dispensationalism generally talks about seven dispensations or seven periods of history. Now, not all dispensationalists break it into seven periods. Some have as few as three. Others have as many as eight. But this idea of seven dispensations is by far the most common and the most popular. And this was introduced by C.I. Schofield of the Schofield Reference Bible. We'll talk about him more in a minute. So what are the seven dispensations that dispensationalists often talk about? The first is the dispensation of innocence, which goes from creation to the fall, obviously talking about the time when Adam and Eve had not yet entered into sin. They were living in innocence, and sin had not yet come into the world.

The second dispensation is called conscience, which goes from the fall to the flood. And the word conscience here is describing the idea that humans under this dispensation were to follow their God-provided conscience. So conscience is what is ordering or governing humanity during this dispensation.

The third is human government, which goes from the time of the flood to the Tower of Babel. And this is where God's expectations were to be enforced by human institutions, human forms of government. Okay. The next dispensation is promise. This goes from the period of Abraham to the Exodus and is governed by the promise that God gave to Abraham.

Following that is the dispensation of law. And as far as time period, this is by far the longest dispensation, stretching from the time of Moses to the crucifixion. And obviously, this is the time period that's governed by the law that God gave to Moses.

Next is the dispensation of grace, which dispensationalists say goes from the crucifixion to the rapture, which I have in quotes. We'll talk about that later. And dispensationalists say that this is the dispensation that we are in now, the dispensation of grace.

Finally is the dispensation of kingdom. And dispensationalists teach that this goes from the time period of the millennium, which is referenced in Revelation chapter 20, to the great white throne, the final judgment. So those are the seven dispensations that dispensationalists typically talk about.

Now, just after giving a few definitions of dispensation, dispensationalism, and looking at these seven dispensations, what are some initial impressions that we might have? Well, I'll share some of mine that I've had as I've explored dispensationalism. First, we see that dispensationalism embraces literal translation and interpretation.

And I think in general, all of us listening in would probably support that. We'd probably want to have a system of understanding the Bible that embraces literal translation and interpretation. I think most of us would be behind that.

Second, we see that it's opposed to the Calvinist system. And again, I would say that most people listening in today would probably support that as well. Hey, if it's against Calvinism, it's probably not so bad.

The third impression that we might have is that the seven dispensations seem generally accurate. Now, we might have some quibbles, especially towards the end as we're talking about the dispensation of grace and dispensation of the kingdom. But just the concept of arranging biblical history into different divisions, and Christians have been doing that since the time of Irenaeus in the second century. So this idea of breaking history into different dispensations or different periods of time is not a foreign concept. It's something that Christians have been doing for a long time. And I think most of us would generally look through the Bible and say, "Yeah, there's sort of these different periods of history."

And so what is the problem? Our initial impression is there's a lot of good things here, things that we wouldn't necessarily disagree with.

Well, I think as I continue this presentation, I'm not going to have to tell you what the problem is. I think you're going to start having red flags going off in your head. And we'll talk about those problems in the afternoon session. And so during this session, you can just start making mental notes of any problems that you see as we discuss dispensationalism in more detail. But initially, it seems like there's a lot of positive things that we could agree with.

Now, let's shift to talking about the origins of dispensationalism. We're going to do that by looking at three men who've been very instrumental in dispensationalism and making it a popular theology. The first man is John Nelson Darby, who lived from the year 1800 to 1882 in England.

Now, he was a trained lawyer. And although he was a trained lawyer, he felt that being a lawyer was inconsistent with his religious belief. I don't know if David Berceau is listening to this, but sorry, David, if that offends you. Although I think David Berceau, in his own walk, realized that some of his work as a lawyer was inconsistent with his Christian belief as well, and he changed the form of law he was practicing. And so John Nelson Darby would be similar, trained lawyer, but he saw some problems with being a lawyer and it being inconsistent with his Christian belief. He was an ordained Anglican priest, at least initially. He was a futurist. Now, futurist has a very specific definition when we're talking about it in a theological sense.

It references a person who believes that eschatological prophecies are still to be fulfilled. So prophecies about the end days have not been fulfilled yet. They're still to be fulfilled. That's what we mean by futurist. And he is generally considered to be the father of dispensationalism. He first published his dispensational views in a paper titled The Apostasy of the Successive Dispensations. He published that around the year 1830.

He was also a Bible translator. And I've actually referenced his translation a number of times. Darby's translation of the New Testament is a very literal translation. But as far as literal translations go, it's quite good and generally easier to understand than something like Young's literal translation. And so if you're ever looking for a literal translation, you want to check what the Greek actually says, he has a great translation. I would recommend it.

And so I feel sort of at one with him as far as Bible translation is concerned. And I respect his work there. And he was also a leader of the Plymouth Brethren. We'll talk about them in a minute. But he had become disappointed with the lack of spiritual fervor in the church. And he felt like the established church was so corrupt that no true believer could remain in it. And so he became part of this movement called the Plymouth Brethren. Now, let's talk a little bit about the Plymouth Brethren. Who were they?

They began meeting in Dublin, Ireland, in 1825. They were a restorationist movement. They felt that the established Church of England had abandoned or distorted many of the ancient traditions of Christendom. And so they wanted to go back to the teachings of the New Testament.

They had a desire to create a holy and pure fellowship and even included a dress code in many of their congregations.

Oh, sorry. Let me continue here. The people in the movement simply wanted to meet together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ without reference or without getting concerned about denominational differences. They practiced spontaneous worship and preaching similar to the Quakers, which obviously is another historic peace church.

The Plymouth Brethren, I do not believe, were a peace church, but they had similar to the Quakers, the spontaneous worship and preaching. And again, they were against denominationalism. But ironically, they were split among themselves. The Plymouth Brethren split into two main groups, the Open Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren. Then the Open Brethren split into two more groups, and the Exclusive Brethren split into many more groups. And so even though they didn't want they wanted all Christians to be one and they didn't want denominations, yet they couldn't agree with themselves, and they kept splitting amongst themselves.

They also embraced sola scriptura and an emphasis on the literal interpretation of prophecy. Now, why do I share all these things about the Plymouth Brethren? Well, as I read through this list, I see a lot of similarities with conservative Anabaptist churches and kingdom Christians who are also restorationists. They want to go back to the teachings of the New Testament. They want a holy and pure fellowship. Many churches have dress codes. Spontaneous worship and preaching, not as much, except maybe in some of the apostolic churches.

And also, unfortunately, we also see a lot of splits among conservative Anabaptist churches and a focus as well on sola scriptura and literal interpretation and application of scripture. So there are a lot of commonalities here. So I think John Nelson Darby, his perspective on things was very similar to the perspective that many of us are coming from. And so we want to learn from his mistakes and not repeat them. Because if we're already thinking so similarly as he did, there's a great potential that we could make the same mistakes that he did. And so that's why I bring this out about the Plymouth Brethren and who John Nelson Darby was and what he believed.

So he was the father of dispensationalism. But let's move on to talk about Cyrus Ingerson Schofield, who lived from 1843 to 1921. He was an American. He was a soldier in the Civil War. Ironically, he was also a lawyer and went on to be a politician. So I guess dispensationalism is popular among lawyers, whatever that may mean.

Earlier in his life, he was a heavy drinker who was divorced and remarried. He went on to convert to evangelical Christianity. And he was an ordained congregationalist minister. So he's ordained in the congregationalist churches.

He was a prominent fundamentalist. If any of you have ever heard of a pamphlet called Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, that probably rings a bell with some of you. He was the author of that pamphlet in 1888, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth.

He was also the editor of the Schofield Reference Bible, which I imagine most of you have heard of, initially published in 1909. Now, the Schofield Reference Bible was so popular and influential that the label dispensationalism was first used in the 1920s to distinguish Schofield's theology from other approaches.

And Schofield has such an enormous influence in America that we could really say he was the catalyst for American dispensationalism and primarily through the Schofield Reference Bible. So he's a very important figure in the history of dispensationalism. The third man we're going to talk about is Louis Ferry Chafer, who lived from 1871 to 1953, also another American.

He was the co-founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary. I imagine many of you have heard of that seminary. He, too, was an ordained congregationalist, just like Schofield. In fact, he was mentored by Schofield. So there's a very close link between Chafer and Schofield.

Chafer was also the teacher of Charles C. Ryrie, who was a professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary and one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. If any of you have ever heard of the Ryri Study Bible, it's named after this man here, Charles C. Ryrie.

So the Ryri Study Bible, the Schofield Reference Bible are both dispensationalist works.

Chafer was also the author of Systematic Theology, which was an eight-volume work. And it was the first time that a pre-millennial dispensational framework of Christian theology was systematized into a single format. Now, these books were so popular that they sold out the first printing in six months. And the series had a third printing within two years. And the series has been printed a number of times since then by a number of publishing houses. So it's still very influential. It is the primary theological reference work for dispensational theology.

So we have John Nelson Darby, C. I. Schofield, and Louis Ferry Chafer, three men who are very important in the history of classic dispensationalism.

Let's now turn our attention to the core of dispensationalism. What is at the very heart of dispensationalist teaching? I'm going to put a quote up on the next screen. And even if you don't get anything else that I say in this presentation, if you understand this one quote and remember this one quote, you will know what is truly at the heart of dispensationalism. Okay? Here's the quote. It's from Charles C. Ryrie, again, the student of Louis Ferry Chafer. "A dispensationalist keeps Israel and the church distinct."

This is the core of classic dispensationalism. A dispensationalist keeps Israel and the church distinct. So Israel is kept radically separate from the church, and the two are never mixed in the mind of a dispensationalist. If you can remember that, everything else within dispensationalism will start to make sense.

So that's the core of dispensationalism. Now, let's look at a few more specific areas. We'll start with biblical interpretation. Now, we already said that classic dispensationalists claim to follow a consistently literal interpretation. Louis Chafer says, "Proper interpretation assumes that each word has its normal literal meaning unless there are good reasons for regarding it as a figure of speech."

So again, there's the claim to follow a consistently literal interpretation. Now, there's some nuance in that. Text related to Israel must be interpreted literally according to classic dispensationalists. So if the text is about Israel and Old Testament prophecy about Israel, it must be interpreted literally. However, classic dispensationalists teach that other texts can be interpreted typologically, especially when they relate to the Gentiles or the church. Now, let's take a look at that word typologically. Make sure we understand what that means. Typology is a special kind of symbolism. More specifically, when we're talking about typology, a type in scripture is a person or thing in the Old Testament that foreshadows a person or thing in the New Testament.

For example, in the story of Abraham being told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, a typological interpretation sees Isaac as a symbol for Christ. And Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac prefigures or foreshadows God's sacrifice of his own son, Jesus. So when we're talking about typological interpretation, that's what we're talking about, where a type stands for or foreshadows something in the New Testament. So dispensationalists say that text related to Israel must be interpreted literally, but other texts can be interpreted typologically.

John Darby puts it this way. He says, "First, in prophecy, when the address is directed to the Jews, there we may look for a plain and direct testimony because earthly things were the Jews' proper portion. On the contrary, where the address is to the Gentiles, there we may look for symbol or typology because earthly things were not their portion, and the system of revelation must to them be symbolic."

So those are a lot of words to basically say, if the text is about Israel, it has to be interpreted literally. If the text is about the Gentiles or the church, it can be interpreted symbolically.

Cyrus Schofield says the following. He says, "It is then permitted, while holding firmly to the historical verity, reverently to spiritualize the historical scriptures." In other words, you don't have to interpret them literally. But he goes on to say, "Prophecies may never be spiritualized, but are always literal." So again, we see this dichotomy.

Prophecies, specifically prophecies about Israel, can never be spiritualized. They're always literal, but other texts can be spiritualized.

Let's look at some examples of typological interpretation in the Schofield Reference Bible. These are all taken from the notes of the Schofield Reference Bible. Eve is considered to be a type of the church as the bride of Christ. Abel is a type of the spiritual man, and the sacrifice that he offered is a type of Christ, the Lamb of God. The Ark is a type of Christ as the refuge of his people from judgment. Melchizedek is a type of Christ, the king priest.

Lot and Abraham are types of the worldly and the spiritual believer. And so we see that, again, classic dispensationalists, they embrace typological interpretation at many points, but they say that text related to Israel must be interpreted literally. Well, that could bring up a question if you're starting to think about this. What about Old Testament prophecies about Israel that seem to be fulfilled typologically or symbolically in the New Testament?

Let's take a look at a couple of examples. Because the dispensationalists are saying Old Testament prophecies about Israel have to literally be fulfilled in Israel or through Israel. But there's places in the New Testament where Old Testament prophecies seem to be fulfilled through the Gentiles or through the church. And so what do we do about those? Let's look at a couple of examples.

First, Benjamin Merkel in the book I mentioned during the disclaimer portion, he summarizes the classic dispensational views on interpreting prophecy. And I think his words are helpful for us to see how classic dispensationalists interpret prophecy. This is his summary. "If the New Testament appears to claim that the Old Testament prophecy regarding Israel is fulfilled in Christ and the church, then there are two separate fulfillments. Or the New Testament fulfillment is only an application or partial fulfillment of the Old Testament principle that will also be literally fulfilled in Israel." So what he's saying there is, if an Old Testament prophecy about Israel appears to be fulfilled in the New Testament, either in Christ or in the church, classic dispensationalists will only say that it's an application or partial fulfillment and that the true fulfillment will come at a later time through the nation of Israel.

And we'll look at a couple of examples of that. Let's consider first Joel 2:28, which says, "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions." Okay? We're all familiar with that text. We're familiar that that's quoted in Acts.

In Acts 2:17, here's the footnote from the Schofield Reference Bible on Joel 2:28, what we just read. It says, "Confirm Acts 2:17, which gives a specific interpretation of afterward." Afterward in Joel 2:28 means in the last days and has a partial and continuous fulfillment during the last days which began with the first advent of Christ, but the greater fulfillment awaits the last days as applied to Israel.

In other words, what this note in the Schofield Reference Bible is saying is this. Yeah, Joel 2:28, maybe it's partially fulfilled in Acts 2, but the greater fulfillment is going to come later and it's going to be applied to the nation of Israel.

Okay? Acts 15:14-17 gives another good example.

Oops, sorry.

My screen is partly covered up here. I've got to move this. "Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written.

After this, I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord who does all these things."

So here, Peter is quoting Amos 9:11-12 in relation to the Gentiles being accepted into the church. But instead of interpreting this passage from Amos as being fulfilled in the early church, this is what Schofield has to say in his reference Bible.

The footnote on Acts 15:13 in the Schofield Reference Bible says this, "These verses which follow in Amos describe the final regathering of Israel, which the other prophets invariably connect with the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant." In other words, even when the inspired biblical authors describe a prophecy as being fulfilled in the church, proponents of classic dispensationalism insist on a further fulfillment. They insist that, for example, here, that what Peter is saying is only a partial fulfillment. The Gentiles becoming believers, becoming part of the people of God, is only a partial fulfillment. And what this is really talking about is the final regathering of Israel.

And so that's very typical of classic dispensationalism. If the New Testament appears to say that the prophecy has been fulfilled in Christ or in the church, classic dispensationalists will say, "Well, that's only an application or partial fulfillment. The greater fulfillment is coming later, and it will be fulfilled through the physical nation of Israel."

So what's our conclusion about how classic dispensationalists view biblical interpretation? They claim to follow a consistently literal interpretation. But our conclusion needs to be this. Their commitment is not to a literal interpretation, but to a firm distinction between Israel and the church. And remember, that was the key point I gave you at the beginning, that the very core of classic dispensationalism is a rigid distinction between Israel and the church. Classic dispensationalists are not so concerned about a consistent literal interpretation because they embrace typological interpretation, but their commitment is to a firm distinction between Israel and the church.

Now, let's shift our focus to the relationship between the covenants. And we'll start that section with an explanation of the difference between dispensations and covenants because they're closely related but distinct. A dispensation is a historical outworking of God's plan. That's one way to think about it, in addition to the definitions we shared earlier.

A covenant is an agreement governing relationship between God and man.

Now, often, new covenants and new dispensations went hand in hand. For example, we have the Noahic covenant and the dispensation of human government. We have the Abrahamic covenant and the dispensation of promise. Those two came together hand in hand. We have the Mosaic covenant and the dispensation of law. Again, those two went hand in hand. However, the Davidic covenant was also given within the dispensation of law. So we have the Davidic covenant, but there's no separate dispensation for that covenant.

That covenant falls within the dispensation of law. So there's a difference between a dispensation and a covenant.

Now, let's talk about types of covenants. Again, a covenant is an agreement between two parties. And we can talk about conditional covenants and unconditional covenants. Now, these are all definitions the classic dispensationalists are using. I'm not necessarily supporting or arguing against them. I'm just sharing how they view these things. A conditional covenant is binding on both parties. And if either party fails to fulfill their part, then the covenant is broken and neither party has to fulfill the expectations. So conditional covenant, if either party fails to fulfill it, then it's basically broken and neither party has to continue to fulfill the expectations.

Contrasting with that is an unconditional covenant, which requires only one party to do anything. Nothing is required of the other party. It's unconditional. It's only on the basis of one party.

Now, some Christians think that all of the covenants are conditional. While others, including dispensationalists, think that some of the covenants are unconditional, meaning God is the only actor. God is the only one who has to do anything, and nothing is required of the other party.

So continuing under this theme of types of covenants, let's look at unconditional covenants in the Bible. And again, this is according to classic dispensationalism because other Christians will argue that all of the covenants are conditional and there are no unconditional covenants in the Bible. But again, according to classic dispensationalism, here are three of the unconditional covenants in the Bible.

The first being the Abrahamic covenant, where God promises Abraham land, descendants, and blessing. And this requires nothing on Abraham's part. This is completely reliant upon God. Therefore, it is unconditional. God is going to fulfill it no matter what Abraham does.

Next would be the Davidic covenant, which we can read about in 2 Samuel 7. Here, God promises David and Israel that the Messiah would come from the lineage of David and the tribe of Judah, and that God would establish a kingdom that would endure forever. Again, classic dispensationalists say this is an unconditional covenant, that God is going to do this no matter what human beings do.

Finally, the classic dispensationalists would call the New Covenant an unconditional covenant. The New Covenant being the one mentioned in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Now, since these covenants are unconditional, they must be fulfilled by God. And again, nothing man does will prevent their fulfillment.

All right. So now that we've talked about covenants a little bit, let's look at how the classic dispensationalists literally interpret the covenants.

Oops. We'll start with the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7, and focusing specifically on verses 12 to 13. It says this, "When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers," this is God speaking to David, "I will set up your seed after you who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

So that's the Davidic covenant or the very heart of the Davidic covenant. Classic dispensationalists say it refers to an earthly throne, and it cannot be spiritualized. In other words, you cannot apply this to Jesus Christ reigning from heaven. That would be a spiritual interpretation. This has to refer to a literal earthly throne with a literal earthly king sitting upon it.

Lewis Chafer says it this way, "There is no evidence that David foresaw an earthly throne merging into a spiritual reign, nor is this kingdom and throne established in heaven." So to say that God fulfilled this covenant to David through Jesus Christ reigning from heaven, classic dispensationalists would completely argue against that. They say, "No, this is talking about a literal physical kingdom on earth with literal physical Israel, literal throne, and a descendant of David sitting on earth on that literal throne."

Again, it must be fulfilled with Israel in a physical way and not through the church or not through Christ in heaven. So that is how the classic dispensationalists literally interpret the Davidic covenant. Now, this is where it really starts to get interesting.

The literal interpretation of the New Covenant from Jeremiah 31:31-34. Classic dispensationalists say that Israel is the only true recipient of the New Covenant. Now, why do they say that? Well, you just have to read Jeremiah 31:31 to see why they say that. "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." Now, I'm assuming classic dispensationalists basically bundle Judah together with Israel. But here, they look at Jeremiah 31:31, and again, prophecy about Israel has to be interpreted literally. And so they're saying, "Hey, this new covenant is with the house of Israel. It has nothing to do with the church."

And so again, classic dispensationalists see Israel as the only true recipient of the New Covenant. Now, how each of those dispensationalists, Darby, Schofield, and Chafer, how they reconcile this with the New Testament teachings, they have three different ways of reconciling it. None of them agree with one another. Darby says that the gospel is not formally a covenant, but a revelation of God's salvation in Christ. So he's saying the New Covenant has nothing to do with the preaching of the gospel. That's something different. That's God's revelation of salvation in Christ. And the New Covenant only has to do with Israel.

Schofield says that the New Covenant applies to Israel in the millennium, but there's an application of it for the church in the present age. So he's basically saying the New Covenant has an initial application in the present age and the church, but the ultimate fulfillment will be with Israel during the millennium.

Chafer says that there are two New Covenants. One applies to Israel and one applies to the church. So this whole idea of New Covenant is really a difficult point for classic dispensationalists. And you see that the three historic proponents of classic dispensationalism don't even agree about how to work this out.

So this literal interpretation of the New Covenant applying only to Israel causes some problems. We'll talk about that more in the afternoon session. Let's take a look at some more quotes from the classic dispensationalists on the New Covenant. Schofield says, "The New Covenant is absolutely unconditional. And since no responsibility is by it committed to man, it is final and irreversible." So again, the New Covenant is something God's going to do. It has nothing to do with what man does. God's going to do it. It's final and irreversible.