It makes no sense theologically whatsoever to separate the Church from Israel, or Israel from the Church. Thus, this article will conclude the following:
1) That there is only one Body of Christ (or of the Messiah), and not bodies (plural) of Christ.
2) The teaching of dispensationalism, as originally formulated by Edward Irving in England, promulgated by J. N. Darby, incorporated into C. I. Scofield’s reference bible and carried forward by his disciple, Lewis Sperry Chafer, who is the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, and even propagated by the likes of Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Thomas Ice, Mark Hitchcock, Charles Ryrie, many Messianic Jews, Chuck Smith of the Calvary Chapel organization and even by John MacArthur, is to be realized as a gross error (and even heretical[1]) when compared to the Apostles’ doctrine. It is no secret that dispensationalism’s roots are associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement in Great Britain through the teachings of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882 A.D.), and who is also considered by many to be the father of modern dispensationalism and even futurism (the belief that Revelation is speaking about all things future with no past fulfillments of prophecy at all, except for only what is said about the seven churches).
Let me just say right from the start here that this article is not intended to be a complete analysis on all the errors of dispensationalism (for they are “legion”), but the goal here is to bring to light the resulting Scriptural inconsistencies that are generated by this faulty man-made theological framework, and to remove dispensationalism’s supporting pillars by using the sharpness of the truths of God’s own Word.
So, what is dispensationalism? Dispensationalism is the teaching that Israel and the Church are separate entities. Dispensationalism is a theological system that teaches that biblical history is best understood in light of a successive number of wholly distinct and separate administrations of God’s dealings with mankind which it calls: dispensations. It maintains fundamental distinctions and differences between God’s plan for natural Israel and the Jews, and His plan for the New Testament Church. And it also emphasizes a prophecy of an end-times pre-tribulational rapture of the Church, just prior to Christ’s Second Coming, so that God can do what He wants to do with natural Israel later apart from the Church, and even give everyone a second chance to repent who didn’t do so prior to the rapture (absolutely the opposite of what God did in the historical examples of Noah and Lot).
Lewis Sperry Chafer in his book, Dispensationalism, writes: “The essential elements of a grace administration…are not found in the [literal] kingdom administration,” and that this “kingdom administration” with Israel in the future, “is declared to be the fulfilling of the ‘law and prophets’ (Mat. 5:17, 18; 7:12), and is seen to be an extension of the Mosaic Law into realms of meritorious [or works] obligation.”[2]
Again, Chafer writes:
Judaism has its eschatology reaching on into eternity with covenants and promises which are everlasting. On the other hand, Christianity has its eschatology which is different at every point…. In the case of Israel, the thing to be desired was a long life “upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,” whereas the Christian’s hope is the prospect of the imminent coming of Christ to take away His Church from the earth.[3]W. R. Newell, a dispensationalist, articulates this position very well in his commentary on Romans:
When we reflect that, after He has “caught up in the clouds” His Church saints, our Lord is coming back to this earthly people Israel and will establish them in their land, with a glorious millennial temple and order of worship, to which the Gentile nations must and will submit: then we see that the present time is altogether anomalous! It is a parenthesis, in which God is to make a “visit” to the Gentiles, to “take out of them a people for His name”; after which, James tells us, our Lord “will Himself return, and build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen” (Acts 15:16), on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, where David lived.[4]We will address some of these topics later. But in short, the relationship between Old Testament Israel and New Testament Israel (the Church) is not one of a strong dichotomy, but one of an organic unity with a developed continuity—and that by God! If the teachings of Christ and His apostles present any group as being in a dichotomous relationship with the Israel of God not according to the flesh, it is not with those who make up the New Testament Church, but with natural Israel, Judaism, and New Testament Pharisaicalism. The New Testament age differs from the Old Testament age only in its non-bloody sacrifices and in its greater spiritual fulfillments. But the saints of both ages have always constituted the one true people of God (or the Israel of God) for which natural Israel was only but a type of God setting apart a nation of people for Himself.
Again, Chafer, in agreement with most dispensationalist’s, disagrees. To him the dispensation of law and grace “sets up its ground of relationship between God and man—the Jew by physical birth, the Christian by spiritual birth; each provides its instructions on the life of its adherents—the law for Israel, the teachings of grace for the Church; each has its sphere of existence—Israel in the earth for all ages to come, the Church in heaven. To the end that the Church might be called out from both Jews and Gentiles, a peculiar, unrelated age has been thrust into the one consistent ongoing of the divine program for the earth. It is this sense that Judaism, which is the abiding portion of the nation of Israel, has ceased. With the completion and departure of the Church from earth, Judaism will be again the embodiment of all the divine purpose in the world.”[5]
And it is again that Chafer says with regards to these dispensations of law and grace for entirely two different groups of people, that God’s plans for natural Israel “become such by natural birth while Christians become such by a spiritual birth; that Israelites were appointed to live and serve under a meritorious legal system, while Christians live and serve under a gracious system; that Israelites, as a nation, have their citizenship now and their future destiny centered only in the earth, reaching on to the new earth which is yet to be, while Christians have their citizenship and future destiny centered only in heaven, extending on into the new heavens that are yet to be.”[6]
Clearly, a consistent dispensationalist is a theologian in the grip of an idea: an “idea” that is absolutely unwarranted, unbiblical and not from above. In short, like I said, it is absolutely heretical! And after having just read all of that, who wouldn't agree? Let's move on.
Now according to many dispensationalists there are seven dispensations (though some would claim less, some more).
Number one: there is the dispensation of innocence prior to Adam’s fall. Number two: there is the dispensation of conscience between Adam and Noah. Number three: of human government from Noah to Abraham. Number four: of the patriarchal rule of promise from Abraham to Moses. Number five: of the Mosaic Law from Moses to Christ. Number six: of grace, the current Church age. And number seven: of a 1,000 year literal earthly kingdom rule and reign of Christ with all natural Jews who come out of the seven-year tribulation that is all yet future, but soon will occur in the not-to-distant future. In fact, in 1978, Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, in a not-so-well-known publicized book of his, stated: “If I understand Scripture correctly, Jesus taught us that the generation which sees ‘the budding of the fig tree,’ the birth of the nation of Israel, will be the generation that sees the Lord’s return. I believe that the generation of 1948 is the last generation”[7] ; and that, “since a generation of judgment is forty years and the Tribulation period lasts seven years, I believe the Lord could come back for His Church any time before the Tribulation starts, which would mean anytime before 1981 (1948 + 40 - 7 = 1981).”[8]
There are many things made in Chuck Smith’s statements above that are very troubling. But his statement “I believe that the generation of 1948 is the last generation,” leaves no margin for error for anyone to misunderstand what it is he is referring to. According to Smith (and many others of his persuasion), he emphatically and unequivocally states that WE ARE THAT GENERATION! Now the question remains: “How long is this generation suppose to be?” Again, Smith is undeniably emphatic, “a generation of judgment is forty years” (ibid). Again, there is no room for any ambiguity or margin for error here. WE are the generation; and “forty years” is the length of it. Forty years have now come and gone; Chuck Smith has passed away; and everyone who has believed in his teachings is left holding the bag trying to figure out what to do with it. Like with many cult leaders who have similarly stated the same things in one form or another, and for which Chuck Smith himself has labeled as “false prophets,” their followers just suppress these false teachings and false prophecies of their prophecy gurus only to go on still believing that what they stated will all eventually come to pass just as they predicted, but only in another era of another time. For many, though, who had attended Chuck Smith’s church on the final eve of 1981 in anticipation of the Lord’s return, that was it for them. They skedaddled out of there. And everyone should still be skedaddleing out of there. But time has a way of erasing and masking over these errors of judgment. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are no different. When they are asked about the false prophecies and date setting of their founding leaders, they just shrug it off as an error in judgment, while still holding to the rest of what they have taught and never questioning it for one minute.
Are we “the last generation” that Chuck Smith and every dispensationalist claims that we are? He and pretty much all dispensationalist’s claim that “the generation which sees ‘the budding of the fig tree,’ the birth of the nation of Israel, will be the generation that sees the Lord’s return” (ibid). But is “the birth of the nation of Israel” in our day what Jesus had in mind when He makes this statement about the budding of the fig tree? Nothing could be further from the truth. Concerning the “budding of the fig tree and all the trees” in Luke 21:29, Christ explains what He means by this statement when He immediately afterward says: “So too when YOU [His apostles] see all these things, know that it is near, right at the door” (Mat. 24:33). What “things”? And what will be “near” and “at the door”? Not the singular thing or event of Israel becoming a nation, but all the things (plural) that He said were to precede and lead up to the door of Israel’s season (or “summer”) of desolation by the Roman armies in 70 A.D., and not their restoration at all; and surely not their forming as a nation all over again. To read into this statement of Christ's about the budding of the fig tree as the birthing of Israel as a nation is an outright eisegesis of Scripture and not an exegesis at all. Wow, talk about adding to Christ’s words—this takes the cake! And people call these men bible scholars? Where on earth in the immediate context does it support such a notion like this? You can’t find it anywhere!
The year of 1948 as being "this generation" is flawed; the time-frame of "forty years" is flawed; the generation as being "our generation" is flawed; and the budding of the fig tree and all the trees as denoting "Israel becoming a nation" again is likewise flawed. The one card that has held up this house of cards, now removed, can no longer continue to allow these other cards to stand. The land of Palestine being re-designated as a nation and called “Israel” today has nothing more to do with God dealing with them as a people or as a nation that belong to Him, than with any other nation that the Bible says God has formed. For He “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). A people self-proclaiming themselves as “a nation” proves nothing.
Clearly, Israel as a nation today is to be understood no differently than any other nation. And if the truth were really known, Israel even as a pure-blooded race of people no longer exists. Not a single one of them can trace their genealogies back to the initial twelve tribes. All genealogies were destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. Even John MacArthur, a dispensationalist, agrees: “today, much to the chagrin and sadness of the Jewish people, nobody knows their lineage, none of them know their lineage because all the records have been destroyed…. And that by the design of God because the system was done with at that point, there was no reason to keep genealogies anymore.”[9] And the 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica states with regards to the Jews as being a pure race any longer: “The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to popular view, there is no Jewish race.”[10] Even the Jew's own 1971 Jewish Encyclopedia emphatically states: “It is a common assumption…even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the Jews of today constitute a race, a homogeneous entity easily recognizable…. The diversity of the racial and genetic attributes of various Jewish colonies of today renders any unified racial classification of them a contradiction of terms. Despite this, many people readily accept the notion that they are a distinct race.”[11] Who are these “many people” that “readily accept the notion that they are a distinct race”? By the Jew’s own estimation, not them! It is men from our own selves, from within the Church, that Paul talked about in Acts 20:30, who are teaching and propagating all of this and who are referred to by many today as “Christian Zionists.” And, finally, if all of this were not enough, even the 1977 Collier’s Encyclopedia writes: “A common error and persistent modern myth is the designation of the Jews as a ‘race.’ This is scientifically fallacious, from the standpoint of both physical and historical tradition.”[12]
God is no more going to deal with the Jews as a nation in the future anymore differently than He is going to deal with any other nation now or in the future. Today is the day of salvation for everyone, not later. Just like the days of Noah and the days of Lot, God is not a God of “second chances.” God is through with Israel (if they can even be termed as such anymore) as a nation and as a theocracy under Him. But this does not mean that these pseudo-Jews in our day still do not have a chance to repent now and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is still a future for them, it is in that fact, and in that fact alone! But the dispensationalist’s bone of contention that God has another dispensation of law again for the Jews that is to be separate and distinct from the age of grace for the Church made up of both Jews and Gentiles is a fallacy and a complete distortion of the Truth. It is “another” gospel that must be vehemently denied and spoken against at all costs. Being saved by grace through faith has existed since the time of Adam and Eve, something that most dispensationalist’s will vehemently deny. This is very troubling indeed. But this is the crux of Covenant Theology. Grace has always saved everyone; and grace will lead us all home. No works ever saved a man internally. They may have preserved Adam and Eve and others physically to live on the earth for a very long time, but it could not save them internally. And the fact that they fell to the wiles of the Devil, proved that without God’s Spirit within them and helping them, they were only destined to failure. Man left to himself, without the help of the Holy Spirit, will inevitably and always miss the mark.
Now each one of these dispensations is said to represent a different way in which God deals with mankind. They are specifically different and individual testings and requirements for man to be right with God that are associated with each of these dispensations. As Scofield denotes: “These periods are marked off in scripture by some change in God’s method of dealing with mankind, in respect to two questions: of sin, and of man’s responsibility. Each of the dispensations may be regarded as a new test of natural man, and each ends in judgment—marking his utter failure in every dispensation.”
(www.theopedia.com).
The biblical (and not the dispensationalist’s) definition of “dispensation” from the Greek oikonomia means “an administration” or “stewardship,” and not “periods of time” in which God has a new and distinct way of dealing with mankind that are separate and distinct from one another, with varying plans or ways for people to be saved. In other words, salvation by grace alone through faith alone has always been in existence as the plan of salvation since the beginning of Adam and Eve. This gracious plan was revealed to Adam and Eve in the sacrifice of an animal as an atonement for their sins and in the covering of their bodies by God with the skins of those animals. Genesis 3:15 is also another allusion to this, as well as the fact that the Scriptures say that Christ was considered as a lamb that was slain from the very foundations of the world. Clearly, grace alone in Christ alone was a covenantal pact or concept developed in the mind of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit before the fall of Adam and Eve; and which eventually began to be unveiled and articulated over time throughout the Law and the Prophets.
So, let’s just forget about the phrase “Covenant Theology” for a moment here and focus on the main issue at hand. Dispensationalism is a system that holds out to people a totally new and different paradigm for understanding Israel and prophecy. To be sure, there has always been only one plan of salvation and one people that truly belong to the Lord (the seed of the woman vs. the seed of the serpent) who have experienced “administrative” (or dispensational) changes throughout their history. These varying administrations never changed the overarching truth that God has always had only one true people that belonged to Him (and not two) who are saved by faith. And God’s plan to save a people for Himself by grace through faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin, runs like a scarlet thread throughout redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation. But dispensationalists deny that the gracious redemption through Christ is the unifying purpose in Scripture of God’s plan of salvation in both the Old and New Testaments. So they place a distinction (or a separation) between an earthly people (natural Jews) who are saved by a legal system or covenant of law, and a heavenly people (the Church) who are saved by a gracious covenant through faith. On the other hand, Covenant Theology has always maintained that people were never saved by law at all, but only by grace; and that this gracious covenant has been in the mind of God before Adam and Eve were ever created, and even in existence throughout history since that time for Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, and all the prophets---to name just a few.
In addition to all of these dispensations mentioned above, the real theological significance between dispensationalism and the truth can be seen in the following four basic tenets which undergird classic dispensational teaching, verses the historic orthodox teachings of the Church. The tenets of dispensationalism are this:
The first tenet is that there is a fundamental distinction between Israel and the Church. According to dispensationalists, there always has been and always will be two peoples of God with two entirely different destinies. One is earthly for earthly or natural Israel or Jews; the other is heavenly for the spiritual Church of both Jews and Gentiles who were saved in the age of grace. Dispensationalist Lewis Sperry Chafer, as noted earlier as the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, again, articulates this position very well:
It should be observed that though Judaism and Christianity have much in common, they never merge the one into the other. Having each its own eschatology reaching on into eternity…The Word of God distinguishes between earth and heaven, even after they are created new. Similarly, and as clearly, it distinguishes between God’s consistent and eternal earthly purpose, which is the substance of Judaism; and His consistent and eternal heavenly purpose which is the substance of Christianity. And it is illogical and fanciful to contend that Judaism and Christianity ever merge as it would be to contend that heaven and earth cease to exist as separate spheres.[13]At least Chafer got one thing right: "it is illogical and fanciful to contend that Judaism and Christianity ever merge." But they only "never merge" to natural Israel's detriment, not to their credit. And we'll discuss this in more detail later.
Chafer continues:
The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved, while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity.[14]The second tenet is that there is a fundamental distinction between the dispensation of the Law of Moses and the dispensation of Grace. For dispensationalists, they are mutually exclusive ideas (something the reformers fought hard against to be inclusive in many ways, and not exclusive; albeit not without some problems as to what is to be deemed “inclusive” or “exclusive” for us to practice today). For dispensationalists, the natural Jew is saved by keeping the Law; the Church is saved by grace alone in Christ alone. And in a future seven-year tribulation and in the millennium, “the law” will once again reign over grace. Grace will be non-existent during these times. That age was for the Church age. And since the Church is raptured, that gracious covenant goes with her. In the millennium, the Jews, with the help of Christ, will once again build a fourth temple (after the third one is destroyed during a future seven-year tribulation) after the pattern of Ezekiel's visions in his last eight chapters. And according to a literal interpretation and application of Ezekiel's visions, literal circumcision will once again be reinstated, literal atoning animal sacrifices will once again be offered, and the Festivals, New Moons and Sabbath-days will all be reinstated and mandated to be literally observed again. And for any who do not literally observe these things, they will be cursed with a curse according to a literal understanding and application of Zechariah 14 (which, by the way, speaks of the present Church age and not a dispensation of law again in the seven-year tribulation or throughout a future earthly millennial reign of Christ).[15]
Even a future seven-year tribulation is entirely based upon a faulty presupposition that the personal masculine subject pronoun “he,” in Dan. 9:27, is referring to a future Antichrist who will confirm or give strength to a covenant; when, if the truth were really known, it is Christ (or the Messiah) in verse 26 who actually confirms or gives strength to His New Covenant; with the personal subject pronoun “he” in verse 27 having as its antecedent noun the more distant antecedent subject noun “Messiah” in the first part of verse 26, and not the “prince” in the second part of that verse at all which is an object noun. You can always tell who or what is the subject in a sentence by knowing who or what is doing the action of the verb. The “people” are doing the destroying “of the Prince” who is an object noun, and which is denoted by the use of the preposition “of” (or "the prepositional object"; also referred to as "a prepositional phrase"). And as grammarian Robin L. Simmons notes here with regards to a prepositional phrase: “Sometimes a noun within the prepositional phrase seems the logical subject of a verb. Don’t fall for that trick! You will never find a subject in a prepositional phrase.”[16]
So, since the “prince” is the object of “the people” who are the subject noun in this sentence, and “the people” cannot be the antecedent subject noun of the masculine subject pronoun “he” in verse 27, then naturally what is known in grammar as a more distant antecedent subject noun is to be sought after. That singular, masculine, antecedent subject noun can be none other than "the Messiah" in the first part of verse 26. Christ, not an Antichrist, upon His 3 ½ year ministry and death, gave strength to, and confirmed, this covenant “with many” (cf. Mat. 26:28; Heb. 9:16-17)—putting an end to both bloody and non-bloody sacrifices and oblations—with the remaining 3 ½ years left for Him to confirm it with both Jews and Gentiles. This has been the teaching of the Church historically—even among those who were premillennialists but never “dispensational” premillennialists. George Eldon Ladd was one of them. And he articulates this historic position of the Church in his book The Blessed Hope and in his Commentary on the Revelation of John. And, so, while it is true as dispensationalists contend that pronouns must agree with nouns, this doesn’t really truthfully tell the whole story. “Subject” pronouns must agree with “subject” nouns, and “object” pronouns must agree with “object” nouns. If the object noun “prince” were the antecedent noun to the person being described in verse 27, then the pronoun would have to say “him,” as all singular masculine object pronouns do, and not say “he” which is a singular masculine subject pronoun. And of course it would not make any sense at all to say, “And him shall confirm a covenant with many.” Not only is this unnatural for someone to speak like this, but it is also just not good grammar. All of this is basic grammar 101. But, anyway, enough with English grammar lessons. Let’s move on.
Now, while we are on this subject of things future (which are really to be understood as having either already occurred in the past or in the present), let’s take the supposed future literal earthly reign of Christ in the millennium as another example. Even with regards to Christ being indeed now a king on the throne of David in heaven, Christ acknowledged to Pilate: “You are right in saying that I am a king. In fact, for this reason was I born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth,” and, “everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (Jhn. 18:37). And listen to what “everyone on the side of truth” is to listen to in verse 36: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is from another place.” This is where the paradigm shift came for me in beginning to contemplate all of this. Either I believe Christ’s words, or I believe the words of those who are all liars and claim in tandem with all unregenerate Jews that His kingdom will be a political kingdom on earth, and in His glorified body no less at that. Christ had earlier stated that His kingdom did not come with “observation” (Lke. 17:20), was “within” (Lke. 17:21), and could only be “seen” when a person becomes “born-again” (Jhn. 3:3). It is a kingdom that is not to be seen with the natural eye but with the eyes of the Spirit. Therefore, all those verses in the Old Testament that dispensationalists (in tandem with all unbelieving Jews) claim must be interpreted and carried out literally---such as in Isaiah 11, 65-66, Joel 3, Zechariah 14 and Ezekiel 40-48---must by the very nature of the case be understood as figuratively portraying spiritual truths and ideas, using concepts that were naturally familiar to the Jews, but used to denote things far more ethereal than the natural mind and ear can possibly understand or perceive. But all dispensationalists, such as Charles Ryrie, would counter all this by saying: “Based on the philosophy that God originated language for the purpose of communicating His message to man and that he intended man to understand that message, literal interpretation seeks to interpret that message plainly.”[17] Can these people really be serious? You bet they are! All one needs is natural eyes to see and natural ears to hear and, viola! All becomes naturally self-evident to them. While it is true that God “originated language for the purpose of communicating His message to man and that he intended man to understand that message,” the understanding of it can only come through the eyes and ears of those who have been spiritually enlightened to understand it. And being a Christian does not make one necessarily all of a sudden “enlightened” either; for then Paul would not have prayed that the eyes of the Christians at Ephesus would be enlightened (cf. Eph. 1:17-18).
All that was natural and typical in the OT, pointed to that which was spiritually antitypical. And God took advantage of all that through the words of His prophets which, for the most part, remained a mystery until Christ and His apostles came on the scene. Of such a “spiritual” kingdom now is the kingdom of Christ; and it is only such wisdom as this from above that is truly justified of all of God’s true children of promise who are born from above. All others will only “stumble” over such wording, wrestling the Scriptures to their’s and everyone else’s own destruction, and not for any literal or physical restoration in the future for natural Israel at all. Mark my words, and mark them well: I am now 65 years old and will probably see myself live another 20 or so years. By now it has been 70 years for me since Israel became a nation in 1948, and 51 years since the seven-day war in Israel in 1967 (the day that some have re-calculated to be the year that the 40 year generation started from and, which, by the way, has also failed to materialize). But all of these prophecies of their’s have, and will, fall to the ground. Not a single word will be fulfilled except for Christ coming again a second time. They are all false teachers and false prophets with false hopes for natural Israel. And instead of the Jews seeing their restoration over in Palestine, they will most likely see their desolation again continuing as it did in the past when all natural unbelieving Jews resisted their enemies and tried to take back what God has said is no longer their’s to take back. For unless the Lord builds the house, they that labor, labor in vain. The day that Israel tries to reclaim the area where the Muslim’s Dome of the Rock now stands will be the day when they will surely see their demise once again. As Jesus stated, “Look, your house is left abandoned” (Mat. 23:38). It is no longer His house, but their’s. The rending of the veil by God no less, and not just another destruction by another nation (such as by the Romans), proved beyond all doubt that God himself was “finished,” even as Jesus declared, with the old way of doing things in order to begin with a new way of doing things. The body of Christ made up of both Jews and Gentiles is now deemed by God to be His temple and His house. Don’t think for one minute that God is behind any rebuilding programs of natural stone temples anymore. We, “like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1Pet. 2:5). As such, we (not them) “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you [we] may declare the praises of Him who called you [us] out of darkness into His wonderful light” (v. 9). Again, not natural Israel according the flesh, but US!—the true and spiritual Israel of God made up of both Jews and Gentiles. As one writer notes, “It would be an egregious expression of the worst imaginable redemptive regression to suggest that God would ever sanction the rebuilding of the temple. It would be tantamount to a denial that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It would constitute a repudiation of the Church as the temple of God and thus an affront to the explicit affirmation of Paul here in 2 Corinthians 6 and elsewhere.”[18] When John says “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jhn. 1:14), the Greek word for “dwelt,” skenoo, literally means “to pitch a tent” or “to live in a tabernacle” and undeniably points back to the Old Testament types when God’s glory took up residence in the tent or tabernacle of Moses, the portable moving tent of meeting, and eventually also in Solomon’s temple. The point being in all of this is that God has chosen to now dwell in His people in a more intimate and personal way as exemplified in Christ’s body as both “tent” and “temple” (cp. Jhn. 2:19) in which those OT types pointed to. And to resort back to the old way of doing things is, in the words of Paul, to “rebuild what I destroyed” (Gal. 2:18). God has never lived in a temple or tabernacle built by men’s hands (Acts 7:48), nor ever will. His presence is no longer to be found in temples of stone marble, silver, or gold. His presence is now found in the tabernacles and temples of our bodies, all the ones in whom (like Christ) God has finally pitched His tent.
The third basic tenet of dispensationalism is the view that the New Testament Church is a “parenthesis” (as noted by Newell earlier) in God’s plans, and that really had to do with His plans for natural Israel according to the flesh. And according to them, it is a “parenthesis” that was NOT foreseen or foretold by the Old Testament prophets. What the prophets foretold had to do with Christ and natural Israel, and not with the Church at all! If the Jews had been obedient to the Law of Moses, there would have been no need for Christ to go to the cross and no need for grace. Now if all of this doesn’t begin to strike you as being “odd,” I don’t know what will. And if you don’t believe me, then just listen to the words of dispensationalist S. D. Gordon:
It can be said at once that His dying was not God’s own plan. It was conceived somewhere else and yielded to by God. God has a plan of atonement by which men who were willing could be saved from sin and its effect. That plan is given in the Old Hebrew code. To the tabernacle or temple, under prescribed regulations, a man could bring some animal which he owned. The man brought that which was his own. It represented him [i.e., himself].[19]So, for S. D. Gordon, the Jew never needed Christ as the Substitute for his sin. He could bring that which was "his own," as prescribed under the law, and save himself. Their own works could save them. God's plan of atonement was only through animal sacrifices. There was no need for Christ as the Savior and Atoning sacrifice for our sins. Christ was an afterthought, due to the Jew's rejection of Christ as their King. So Christ, according to dispensationalists, has "postponed" the "kingdom of heaven" (which for dispensationalists is a kingdom "on earth") for another day, when future Jews upon physically seeing Christ literally cleave the Mount of Olives accept Him as their political King, and then reign with Him as their political King on earth for a thousand years. All of this is nothing short of "nonsense," to say the least. It's like I have said elsewhere in this article: it is as if we were hearing Jews speak, and not supposed Christians at all.
The fourth tenet is that dispensationalists also teach a distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ; with the “rapture” being Christ’s Second Coming split into two parts with Christ coming “for” His saints “in the air” and then later “with” His saints at the end of the seven-year tribulation. After this, the Church will reign in heaven while all natural Jews (including the 144,000), along with Gentiles who are saved by keeping the law in the seven-year tribulation, will reign with the glorified Christ on the earth in the millennium. Again, there will be an earthly people as opposed to a heavenly people that maintains this “distinction” between both natural Israel and the Church that the dispensationalists so vehemently, and I might say, “erroneously” contend. If all this doesn’t strike you as “another” or “different” gospel, then I don’t know what does. For anyone to truly believe that, then it is really questionable whether such individuals are actually saved or not. Such a person, like Judas, is more in league with the Jews than with the Church. They are truly different folks of a different stroke. They are birds of a feather who really do not flock together with Christ’s Church, but with the Jews. And they want to refer to us as “anti-Semitics” for being otherwise. Sounds more like natural unbelieving Jews among the Church reviling the Church, than those who are supposedly in or of the Church reviling the Church; for those who are of the true Church should NOT be reviling her own people in such a manner as this, and then accuse some of us as teaching a "replacement theology" at that. Theirs is truly a "theology" that has "replaced" the true gospel for a false gospel; true doctrine for false doctrine.
Now let’s test these four tenets of dispensationalism with the Scriptures. Are there really to be two “bodies” of people, one natural and one spiritual? One heavenly and one earthly? One worldly and one from another world? The apostles taught us that we are all (both Jews and Gentiles) one body in Christ, who is the Jew's promised Messiah (cf. 1Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 3:6; Jhn. 10:16). This one “body” (not bodies) is called the Church (cf. Col. 1:24; Eph. 5:23). The Church comprised of both Jews and Gentiles is this one “body,” and the Messiah is the Head and Savior of this one body. Therefore, anyone who has ever been saved during both the Old and New Testament eras is a part of this one body, and therefore, part of the Church. And because Christ is the only way to spiritual salvation and eternal life in eternity, whether it was with Adam and Eve, or with Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, the apostles, Paul, Peter or you and me, we all claim Christ as our Savior sent by the Father to redeem His elect who are all jointly of the one and selfsame body of Christ called His Church (or called-out ones). Everyone who is saved by faith in Christ, both past and present, is part of this one body of believers. This is why Christ could say in Luke 13:28-29 to all natural unbelieving Jews: “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.” And again, “But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mat. 8:12). One unbelieving group or body of natural Jews who are just physical descendants directly through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is “cast” or “thrown out,” not to sit and feast with Abraham, Isaac or Jacob at all; while another group or body of individuals is to be joined with the Old Testament saints and patriarchs of old through faith in Christ. People will come from the east, west, north and south to enter in this heavenly city called New Jerusalem from above and sit and partake of the feasts spiritually with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the same manner that Paul said we are to “keep the Feast” of Passover in a non-literal and spiritual manner in 1Cor. 5:8. So it should also stand to reason that we are to “keep the Feast of Tabernacles” (and all the feasts) as foretold by God's prophet Zechariah in chapter fourteen, verses 16, 18-19 in a non-literal and spiritual manner as well. The days of future literal feast keeping are over with. And this alone should get us to start thinking differently about what God is truly saying to us through His prophets. Truly, our "senses" need to be exercised to think differently---to think spiritually as a spiritual man and not as a natural man. For the natural man cannot understand the things of God, for they are "FOOLISHNESS" to him. Click here for part two.
Footnotes:
[1] The Greek word for “heresy” (hairesis), often translated “sect,” properly “denotes…a choosing, choice…then, that which is chosen, and hence, an opinion, especially a self-willed opinion which is substituted for submission to the power of the truth” (Vine’s Expos. Dict. of Old & New Testament Words, p. 217). It is “a predilection either for a particular truth, or for a perversion of one, generally with the expectation of personal advantage; hence, a division and the formation of a party or sect in contrast to the uniting power of ‘the truth,’ held in toto” (Ibid, p. 335). Peter refers to them as “destructive heresies” (2Pet. 2:1) which divide us rather than unite us. In secular dictionaries it is defined as that which is “unorthodox, unconventional, dissident and radical” (www.dictionary.com). It is “a person who maintains beliefs contrary to the established teachings of the Church” (Ibid). Dispensationalism that is being taught today in most churches has pretty much become “the established teachings of the Church,” so most would now deem it as orthodoxy. But it is really heterodoxy. The natural Jew might maintain that many of the dispensationalist’s tenets are for the most part their orthodoxy. But what should that tell us? Not to rely on a natural Jew without the Spirit! And the reason why so many have believed in it in our day is because it has surfaced among men from our own selves who are supposedly believers who have the Spirit, subtly convincing many as an angel of light that it must be truth, and thus overthrowing the faith of many. Never before, until the early 1800’s, has dispensationalism ever appeared in Church history. You won’t even find it in the teachings of the early church fathers. Like the Azusa street revivals in Los Angeles, and everyone being told that they must be filled with the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, this is a new thing. Only this time it has come out of England from the Lady Powerscourt meetings in which the predecessor to J. N. Darby, Edward Irving, attended regularly. This makes John MacArthur’s present-day “strange fire” teachings that are against the charismatic movement seem like nothing in comparison; and for which he, ironically, so vehemently defends (i.e., dispensationalism) as some of the strangest fire yet!
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[2] Dispensationalism, p. 416.
[3] Ibid, p. 57; bold and italics mine.
[4] Romans Verse by Verse, p. 335.
[5] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 4, pp. 248-249.
[6] Ibid, p. 30.
[7] Chuck Smith, End Times (Costa Mesa: The Word For Today, 1978), p. 35. Bold and italics mine.
[8] Ibid.
[9] From Grace To You sermon on Luke 3.
[10] vol. 12, p. 1,054.
[11] Encyclopaedia Judaica Jerusalem, 1971, vol. 3, p. 50.
[12] Collier’s Encyclopedia, 1977, vol. 13, p. 573.
[13] Dispensationalism, pp. 40, 41.
[14] Ibid, p. 107.
[15] For more thoughts on all of this, please read my book: Zechariah 14. I would also highly suggest reading some of the older commentators who also saw a lot of what is being depicted in this chapter as referencing the Church age and not another future dispensation of Law with a literal observance of all of these ceremonies.
[16] Accessed online at: http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/prepositionalphrase.htm).
[17] Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, p. 96.
[18] Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (Christian Focus Pub., 2013).
[19] Quiet Talks About Jesus, p. 114.
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