Why didn't the amillennialist cross the road?

I recently had the pleasure of a chat with good brothers Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt, and esteemed sister Aimee Byrd.

The latter favored me with a list of reasons why the dispensationalist would not cross the road. I thought it would be unkind not to offer her the same filial gesture, and so... ten reasons why the amillennialist would not cross the road:

1. The road is Jesus. Why would I want to cross Jesus?
2. This road is not mentioned in the Three Forms of Unity.
3. So many have already crossed it before me. Who am I to cross it for myself?
4. "Road" sounds so literal...which means it's carnal, which means no.
5. 2000 years ago roadcrossing was inaugurated, so I'm already living in the Age of The Other Side of the Road.
6. Nobody said anything about this road before 1800.
7. Hal Lindsey crossed a road once. You'll never catch me doing it.
8. Crossing the road might be taken to mean two ways of salvation.
9. Pretty sure Calvin, Knox, Owen, Berkhof and Van Til never crossed this road, and they're my heroes.
10. Most people who cross roads are not Calvinists.

Calvinist hermeneutics

Gotcha.

Dispensationalism: resources from Fred Butler

As I've said before, if Fred Butler isn't a daily stop for you, he should be. His posts are substantive, varied, muscular, and he's a good guy.

Today he once again engages Jamin Hubner, whose unhinged rants — lamentably given prominence by his association with a deservedly famous apologist — make him a sort of "Reformed" book-end to Ergun Caner Dave Hunt.

In the course of so doing, Fred links to a previous post of his, titled What dispensationalists believe, but more memorably (and delightfully) subtitled "Helping My Reformed Covenant Bros. Move Beyond the 1950s."

I put these up partly for my own later reading, but also because some of you have from time to time questioned me about dispensationalism, and I know my answers haven't been as fulsome as either of us would like. If the Lord opens up a way for fulltime ministry of the Word, that's an area where I really need to catch up in my reading. Plus — though this is far less likely given my advanced age and dull-wittedness, and the immensity of the topic — some have encouraged me to write a Calvinistic dispensationalism text. I'd love to; I just don't know that I'm the man to do it. As I've said, I'd like to see Mike Vlach write an aggressive yet irenic, scholarly and thorough tome, doing just that.

Plus, if my current books bomb (I say this because I've no clue how they're doing today), there won't be any others.

Until then, the links above give some good resources.

Walvoord-Camping debate

Decades ago I heard that Harold Camping and John Walvoord, then president of Dallas Theological Seminary, had conducted an on-air debate. Only recently, I found where it could be downloaded and heard online. The debate lasts nearly six hours, and I just finished listening last night.

The debate is interesting and instructive. The moderator, a gracious man, seems stylistically to be on a radio show from the 40s (the crackling sound quality heightens this effect as he speaks); his is an oddly florid tone. But Camping and Walvoord are both straightforward and to the point.

I could do a fairly accurate job of summarizing the six hours like this: for the most part...

• Walvoord keeps reading Scripture and saying "I think it means what it says"
• Camping keeps working his decoder-ring hermeneutics to make Scripture not mean what it says

And that's pretty much it.

For instance, here's a big clue: Listen for Camping repeatedly cautioning that we must read a passage "very carefully," or admonishing that we must "let the Bible interpret itself" rather than being devoted to a particularly school "or consensus." Sounds good? How can you argue against either?

Yet every time, these words signals that Camping is about to explain how Scripture doesn't mean what it says. It means he is about to twist Scripture. He is about to bring together two things that have no bearing on each other, and make a bus bench in Ohio mean that a hamburger in California is really a cup of tea in England.

Figures; Camping also says that the whole Bible is in parables, and he says that it is is very difficult to understand. Perhaps his version of Hebrews 1:1 reads that God "spoke in incomprehensible code to the fathers by the prophets"?

Also interesting: a caller asks about not knowing the day or the hour, and Walvoord answers. Camping simply declines to answer, which is an exception. It looms large in light of his recent deadly error.

Now, this may sound as if I'm writing the next bit for effect, but it is literally true: around the third and start of the fourth hour, I was thinking very appreciatively about what gentlemen both Camping and Walvoord were, and I was anticipating praising both for their behavior — and then the fourth hour started. Camping became completely unhinged. He launched an absurd attack on premillennialism, listing off a dozen dire accusations, including that premillennialism distorts the Gospel, denies Christ's kingship, denies Christ's lordship, denies the Bible's authority to explain itself, and a veritable pile of verbal manure.

Camping did not just crack in recent years. He'd already jumped the shark at this point.

Walvoord remained a gentleman in his response, more so than I would have. He said something like this: "My, that is a very impressive list of accusations. The only problem is that every one of them is false." No kidding.

Ominous note.  There was a very poignant moment at about five hours and thirteen minutes. In the course of his answer, John Walvoord warned against the slippery slope that is spiritualization. He observed that many heresies and much liberalism involved the spiritualization of the Bible. And then he said this: "Once you start spiritualizing, there is no telling where you are going to stop."

He said this in front of Harold Camping who, decades later, after assuring people that the Bible guaranteed that Jesus would return to rapture His own on May 21, 2011, then said, "Oh yeah, about that — oops, sorry, it was actually a spiritual event."

A second poignant note is that in his attempt at a response, Camping actually — I kid you not — alluded to the Biblical admonition against many people becoming teachers (James 3:1f.)! You can't make this stuff up. If only Camping had heeded his own words.

Or listened to John Walvoord.

Two crucial hermeneutic principles

Carrying on from yesterday's meta:

1. "Jesus" is not God's way of saying "I can fudge on My promises and covenants" — to say the least.
2. "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory" (2 Corinthians 1:20) is not a Biblely way of saying that "all the promises of God find their Fooled ya! in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Ah! ya got me! to God for his glory."

Sometimes a squirrel is a squirrel.

Discuss.

Book review: Has the Church Replaced Israel?, by Michael J. Vlach

Has the Church Replaced Israel?, by Michael J. Vlach

Nashville: B&H Academic: 2010

Readers with eidetic memories will recall my earlier review of Vlach's earlier book, Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths, wherein I wished for another book that "makes the robust, positive, aggressive Biblical case that dispensationalism deserves." Is this that book?


Vlach divides his 210-page presentation, of which B&H Academic provided me a review copy, into four parts:

Part 1: Introduction to Supersessionism (9-23)
Part 2: Superessionism in Church History (27-76)
Part 3: Supesessionism and Hermeneutics (79-120)
Part 4: Supersessionism and Theological Arguments (123-210)

Supersessionism? "You keep using that word," observes Inigo Montoya. Vlach uses the word as equivalent to replacement theology, while noting proponents' objections to the terms (which they use, themselves; cf. 9-11). He defines it as "the view that the NT Church is the new and/or true Israel that has forever superseded the nation Israel as the people of God," a view which sees the church as "the sole inheritor of God's covenant blessings originally promised to national Israel," and which "rules out a future restoration of the nation Israel with a unique identity, role, and purpose" (12, emphases original). That question is the book's main issue (5), with the attending focus on the question of "whether the nation Israel will experience a national salvation and restoration" (5).

A great portion of Vlach's book is expository or defensive, from a nonsupersessionistic viewpoint. That is, he is at great pains fairly to represent the varying forms of supersessionism, along both explanation and positive argument. Therefore, nonsupersessionism first appears in the book in Vlach's responses to the positive case for supersessionism. More on that, later.

The first part (9-23) is devoted to analyzing the forms of supersessionism, and setting forth and analyzing its historical roots. Vlach singles out the forms of punitive supersessionism (Israel displaced as a judgment for its sin; 13-14), economic supersessionism (the transfer from ethnic Israel to the universal church is the next phase in God's plan; 14-16), and structural supersessionism (such a stress on the NT as consummation that most of the OT effectively disappears into blurry background scenery; 16-17).

In turning to the question of the future of Israel, Vlach isolates strands of different approaches as subsets of supersessionism. While agreeing that the church is the new or spiritual Israel, these views differ as to the thought of any future for Israel. The widely-held moderate supersessionism, for instance, holds that there is some kind of future for Israel, involving its spiritual conversion and addition to the church (20-23), as opposed to a stronger form that sees no special future for Israel at all (23).

Then Vlach traces the historical development of supersessionism, from the fathers to the present day (27-76). This is an interesting journey that begins with such a Jewish presence in the church that Eusebius traced 15 Jewish bishops in Jerusalem (29), to the complete absence of Jews at Nicea (30). As allegorical interpretation and philosophical influences pair to affect and redirect hermeneutics, and as the gulf between apostate Jews and Gentile Christians increases, the notion of the church as replacing Israel becomes the established position. Still, it is striking to note Vlach's documentation again and again of belief in some sort of future for Israel as the people of God, though it involves incorporation into the church rather than a distinctive national role.

The real surprise for me in this section was how many post-Holocaust denominational statements explicitly disown supersessionism  (69-72). Good as the outcome seems, I wonder what the motivation is, whether Biblical or cultural. Vlach observes that "supersessionism's grip on the Christian church as a whole has been lessened significantly," and may no longer be the dominant view (72). Vlach also (of course) brings in dispensationalism's affirmation of Scripture's insistence on the perpetuity of Israel's distinctive place in God's plan (72-73), as well as the realization among historical-Jesus researchers that Jesus affirmed the hope for ethnic Jewish restoration (74).

Then Vlach tackles the hermeneutics (interpretive principles) of supersessionism (79ff.), which he identifies as:

1. Belief in the interpretive priority of the NT over the OT
2. Belief in nonliteral fulfillments of OT texts regarding Israel, and
3. Belief in national Israel as a type of the NT church (79).

Vlach notes the range from the subtler textual massaging on the part of some, to the up-front, blatant assertion that NT writers reinterpret, change, and alter the original meaning of the OT texts in ways that do not derive from the source texts themselves (80-81). In the course of this discussion Vlach covers the use supersessionists make of Acts 2:16-21; 15:18-18; and Romans 9:24-26.

Then (finally) the nonsupersessionist response begins more heartily to make its appearance on pp. 91ff. as Vlach evaluates these hermeneutics one by one. While acknowledging the authority of the NT and Christ's right to change or cancel OT commands (as in Mark 7:19; 93), Vlach points out the difference between adding referents such as Gentiles on the one hand, and blurring categories, on the other (93-94). He shows that Scripture relates the New Covenant both to Israel and to the church, without identifying the two (94).

Further, Vlach sounds the alarm against effectively robbing 2/3 of the Bible of its authority by refusing to locate the meaning in those texts, and insisting that the OT itself does not speak for itself (94-95). Vlach observes that no explicit NT assertion warrants this overriding of the OT text, or presents the writer as claiming that his new interpretation cancels out the meaning of the OT text. This is a telling point.

Vlach also correctly notes that this approach "defangs" the OT, and impugns its integrity, as it raises legitimate questions as to whether "OT revelations were actually revelations in good faith to the original readers of the promises" (96). The OT clearly insists on the perpetuity of Israel as a nation (Jeremiah 31:35-37; 98), and the NT affirms this expectation (ibid).

Finally Vlach begins presenting the positive case for nonsupersessionism in chapter 10 (109ff.), as he develops four beliefs:

1. The starting point for understanding any Biblical passage (including OT passages) is the passage itself
2. Progressive revelation reveals new information without canceling unconditional promises to Israel
3. National Israel is not a type that is transcended by the church
4. OT promises may have double application or fulfillment with both Israel and the church (109)

Each of these points is unfolded, illustrated, and defended in the following pages.

But then in Chapter 11, we're back to presenting supersessionism's position in its own terms, including permanent rejection of Israel as the people of God (based in part on Matthew 21:43), application of OT Israel-language to the church (i.e. Galatians 6:16; Romans 2:28-29), unity of Jews and Gentiles (i.e. Ephesians 2:11-22), the church's lone possession of OT covenants, and supposed NT silence on the restoration of Israel to the land. He devotes an entire chapter to supersessionist understanding of Romans 11:26 ("and thus all Israel will be saved"), before finally turning to an evaluation of these arguments.

In his evaluation (141-164), Vlach takes supersessionists' claims one by one and verse by verse. I appreciate the breadth of Vlach's reading, and his willingness to defend less-popular views if he finds the evidence convincing. For instance, he notes the view of many that Matthew 21:43 refers to the leaders, a view strengthened by v. 45, but then explains his preference for the interpretation that the "nation" referred to is that (future Jewish) generation which will acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, in line with vv. 37-39 (142-143). Or in 1 Peter 2:9-10, Vlach defends the view that Peter's addressees are Jews (147-149). In both cases, he offers alternative responses in case his specific position is not convincing.

Then two chapters are devoted to making the case for the future restoration of national Israel (177-201), built on seven positive declarations, including the specific promises and affirmations in both OT and NT. This is followed by a chapter on God's future plan for nations (165-176), in which Vlach notes two basic eschatological models: the Spiritual Vision model, influenced by Platonism and relegating anything physical to a lower and less-worthy plane, and the New Creation model, which affirms all of creation as under God's Lordship, and sees eternal life as embodied life on Earth. Vlach correctly affirms the latter as the Biblical model, and Biblically develops its implications for the existence and ministry of Israel and the nations in the eschaton.

In the Conclusion (203-206) Vlach sums up his reasons for concluding "that supersessionism is not a biblical doctrine" (203). He notes that a strong case for national Israel's salvation and restoration can be made Biblically, as well as a strong counter to supersessionism, and very briefly recaps the book's argument. A single appendix deals with the Biblical teaching concerning the origin of the church, followed by a Bibliography and Indices.

So... what'd I think? I enjoyed the book, learned from it, read it twice, marked it thoroughly, and recommend it. I expect to use it in the future. It's certainly a calm, irenic, well-reasoned book. Vlach's position and rationale is clear, but he is never belittling of his doctrinal opponents, and seems to work hard to present their views in their words. In other words, he doesn't write as I probably would, on this subject.

In fact, a great portion of the book is devoted to tracing and explaining supersessionism — at great length. This makes sense, given the dominance that this position unfortunately came to have for a time (and still has in some circles). Though I'm sure the opposition will complain that they weren't presented fully enough, it will be a hard case to establish.

This very feature made me a bit impatient. I found every bit of Vlach's book informative and helpful, but I was (and remain) still hoping for a more aggressive presentation of a positive case for the Biblical affirmation of God's faithfulness to all of His promises.  Vlach's mode of argument doesn't come across with quite the urgency and insistence that I'd give it. Yet Vlach says a great deal of what I'd say (and a lot more besides), but says it more kindly and gently and ambient-temperaturedly than I would. I don't doubt that, in the long run, that's a good thing, and while a more aggressive book would light up my lights, it would have a narrower appeal and usefulness.

So, I could have wished for more space and depth devoted to developing the Biblical position, along with its history and advocates.

Also, I wish Vlach did more direct work in the text, himself. He tends to quote really excellent sources, and let them make his case. This is useful, but it reads more like something intermediate between a term paper and a book. Few will be quoting Vlach per se, because he in turn devotes a great deal of space to quoting others, and the strongest and most memorable statements trace to Fruchtenbaum, Horner, Saucy, Blaising, Bock, Kaiser, Feinberg, and others.

This is clearly an area of great interest to Vlach. He knows his stuff, he has academic training, and he cares about it. Also, he occupies a (sadly) unique niche in that he affirms both the Biblical teaching concerning the sovereignty of God and the full implications of inerrancy and perspicuity.

That is, he's a Calvinist and a dispensationalist.

So this makes me hope that Vlach will go on to produce a persuasive, charitably-aggressive work with other scholars more quoted in the footnotes, and the Bible more deeply dealt with by Vlach in the text. When that happens, you'll hear me singing its praises all over.

In sum: I'm still waiting for that book that, with spiritual fervor and academic depth, "makes the robust, positive, aggressive Biblical case that dispensationalism deserves." This isn't it — nor does Vlach aim to make it so. This book is devoted to one question: does the Bible teach that the church has displaced Israel, or does it affirm a spiritual and national future for ethnic Israel? Vlach treats and answers that question helpfully and usefully and, I hope, persuasively.

Leaving my longed-for tour de force still to be written.

"You might be a dispensationalist if...."

Shepherd's Conference 2010 featured a talk by Dr. Michael Vlach, titled "You Might Be a Dispensationalist If...."  Fred Butler gave me (and also everyone) a heads-up on it.

I listened, I basically enjoyed. You may recall the review of Vlach's book on dispensationalism here. My thoughts about the talk are similar to the book: it was helpful, but I would have liked an aggressive job of making the case for dispensationalism, rather than simply a "here is what they believe, and if you believe it, you're one of them." But since many still are unclear as to what dispensationalism is, except that, like Christianity in Rome, "everywhere it is spoken against" (Acts 28:22), there doubtless is a need for such a talk.

Vlach (pronounced Vlock) takes 15+ minutes actually to get into the substance of his talk, time I would have preferred to see devoted to more development of the topic. His reading of part of Gentry's mocking list was funnier; I would link, but his site is offline.)

Perhaps the best part is Vlach's conclusion, in which the good doctor gives his own serious...

You might be a dispensationalist if....

1. ...you believe that the primary meaning of Old Testament passages is found in the Old Testament passages themselves.
2. ...you believe that national Israel is not a type that finds its significance ended with the Church.
3. ...you reject replacement theology.
4. ...you believe that Jews and Gentiles can be unified in salvation and there is a future for the nation Israel.
5. ...you believe that the nation Israel will be saved and restored with a role of blessing to the nations after the second coming.
6. ...you believe that believing Gentiles can be the "seed of Abraham" without becoming spiritual Jews or part of  Israel.

Book review: The Dispensational-Covenantal Rift The Fissuring of American Evangelical Theology from 1936 to 1944, by R. Todd Mangum

The Dispensational-Covenantal Rift 
The Fissuring of American Evangelical Theology from 1936 to 1944
by R. Todd Mangum
(2007: Wipf and Stock; 346 pages)

Did you know that, at one time, Dallas Theological Seminary had a huge Presbyterian presence, both on staff and among the student body? Did you know that Lewis Sperry Chafer and many other leading dispensationalists such as J. Oliver Buswell, S. Lewis Johnson, and A. A. Macrae, were Presbyterians?

Yet today, you can't serve as a Presbyterian elder or pastor if you are a dispensationalist. Many (not all) Presbyterians regard dispensationalism with suspicion and/or contempt, and treat it as either a heresy, or as heresy's dim-witted, bucktoothed cousin. Reformed sites and writers come up with "reasons" (including really lame ones) for not allowing dispensationalists a seat at the table.

What happened?

Todd Mangum's book takes a stab at part of the answer. He focuses on events leading up to the findings of Presbyterian study committees in the 1940s, which explain the rift that arose between two schools that were, and should have remained, mutual co-combatants in the struggle against unbelief and compromise.

This is Mangum's doctoral dissertation, so it is extremely detailed and closely-documented. It is readable, but it does read like a dissertation. Mangum gets into the original documents at length, and couples it with interviews with men then-living who had been involved in the actual events and known the principle actors (i.e. the late Drs. Walvoord, Macrae, and Johnson, among others).

Mangum argues that the split arose for a number of reasons, ranging from the regional to the political. A few critical errors in judgment and procedure created a rift which has yet to be fully healed. Chafer (of Dallas) drew some unnecessary lines in the sand very dogmatically; the Presbyterians of the board of inquisition would not allow him to address them in person, and narrowed their inquiry primarily to Chafer and a couple of other sources. Therefore, though not in fact representing all dispensational thought, Chafer was made to speak for all dispensationalists. When his positions were rejected, all dispensationalists were rejected.

The results were a far greater isolation and ossification. Presbyterian and Reformed presence at Dallas plummeted, and (of course) dispensational representation in Presbyterian circles fell to nil.

The result is as we see it today. Many dispensationalists resent and reject the doctrines of grace reflexively (having been rejected by their Presbyterian representatives in the 40s), and many Reformed folks view dispensationalists with suspicion at best, and hostility at worst. Two groups who should be battling unbelief side by side, and growing in their grasp of Biblical truths, remain isolated into warring camps.

At some points, one almost wishes one could be snapped back in time, to plead with one on this side or that to re-think, reconsider, re-examine, re-approach, modify... and sometimes just to chill out. But what's done is done, and that sometimes makes for sad reading.

My thoughts. As has been pointed out more than once, dispensationalists really should be Calvinists, and Calvinists really should be dispensationalists. The former believe at least in election and sovereign grace in the case of the yet-to-be-converted generation of Jews; the latter believe in God's sovereignty and faithfulness to His promises, and (at least formally) in the principle of grammatico-historical exegesis.

Yet, rather than admit and (hello?) reform this inconsistency, the latter re-define grammatico-historical exegesis to protect their un-reformed position, and the former ignorantly echo the shallower dodges of famous "Calminian" dispensationalists, past and present. The resulting stalemate is to no one's benefit.

Among his concluding observations, Mangum offers this:

We may wonder whether such dialogue [as has recently begun more in earnest] (and such modifications on both sides) might not have taken place sooner had the discussion not been marred from the beginning with such misunderstandings as we have explored in this study. Our wonder only grows when we consider that there might have been a latent form of "progressive dispensationalism" always present in the dispensationalist constituency from the beginning. (210)

[Update/aside: it occurred to me that news of dispensationalism's welcome back at the table apparently has not reached Minneapolis.]


In sum. Want to see how the rift started, in great and scholarly detail? I don't know a better source than Mangum.

(For a more learned review from a different perspective, see this from Dr. Kenneth J. Stewart)

Those irresponsible, nutty, sensationalistic, date-setting...

...amills.

Hey. Fair's fair.

More thoughts on dissing dispensationalism at Bethlehem's "Evening"

(Followup of this post)

What's really surprising me is the people trying to tush-tush any objection to the absence of a dispensationalist speaker at this event.

First pass

Suppose Dallas Theological Seminary were to host an event called "An Evening on the Extent and Efficacy of the Atonement."

Further suppose that the event were hosted by Chuck Swindoll, and that there were three presenters: a semi-Pelagian, an Arminian, and an Amyraldian.

Do you think that five-point Calvinists would be pleased? Would they feel it was a well-rounded presentation, by a major institution, on the announced topic?

Suppose further that, when they made their objection, Swindoll (or a spokesman) responded, "Well, if we had a five-pointer on the panel, that would be two Calvinists, since we already have the Amyraldian."

Would that be a satisfying response?

Second pass

Seriously: I think you could make a better argument that there is no need for a "historical" premill on the platform. They should have the a-, the post-, and a dispensationalist.

After all, you already have two presenters whose positions think that buckets of OT prophecies have a fulfillment that never could be gleaned from the words themselves, and never would have occurred either to the prophets or their audience; and you already have two presenters whose positions think that most of Revelation really isn't about actual events "that are to take place after this" (Revelation 1:19).

Why have a third ("historical" premil)?

The point 

It is just like that. Note: the event is titled An Evening of Eschatology. Again I ask, which has arguably been the most influential approach to eschatology among Bible-believers over the last century or so?

Note: I am not asking whether you like it, whether you agree with it, whether you're happy with the way things are or have been. I'm asking which has been the most influential in the area of eschatology in the past century or so.

Another "diss" of dispensationalism

You can like it, love it, loathe it, or hate it, you have only two choices:

1. Admit that dispensationalism has been a powerful, influential presence among Biblically-faithful Christians since (at the latest) the beginning of the 20th century, and a major motivator behind increased lay Bible study, Bible teaching, missions and evangelism; or....
2. Build yourself a little bungalow beside that lazy river in Egypt.

It sure seems as if Desiring God's announcement of a conference on eschatology [link updated] comes down for Option #2.

Several folks (including yr obdt svt) made some protesting comments. To them, this response has just been offered:

To those disappointed the dispensational view has been left behind: It would unbalance the debate to have two premillennials. And we can only fit so many around the table, so we've gone with what's most relevant in our context. (Maybe when Jim gets back to Southern Seminary, they can have the intramural premil discussion there!)

I have submitted a response to that. Like this blog, that one is moderated, so it isn't up yet as I publish this post. But this is what I wrote:

Here's why that doesn't convince me.

"Historic" premils love to take a stance approximating "Oh, no no no, look — don't lump me in with those nasty dispensationalists! I'm sophisticated, and have a very old and respectable position!"

Plus, when the Presby's studied dispensationalism in the 1940s to see if it accorded with the WCF, they tried to be very emphatic that they meant dispensational premillennialism, and not "historical" premillennialism. The former (they ruled) was incompatible; the latter was hunky-dory.

And now for an institution to come and say "Oh well, same/same...."

I don't think so. Are they the same? Then let's be even-handed about it. Tell the Presbys and all the pitchfork committees that if they want to come after dispensational premills, they're going to have to come through the "historical" premills first.

And be sure to tell sites like this and this that they're just the same/same — so they should either shut out EVERYONE, or revisit the back of the bus and let it speak for ITSELF.

And if this (to me) common-sense approach isn't followed, I'm sure the moderator will instruct the audience to boo and hiss if any of the participants says anything critical of dispensationalism.

Right?

Right.

(BTW, to be clear: I am not advocating booing and hissing. If you go, don't boo or hiss. But I do think it would be unfair to criticize dispensationalism in absentia, since we won't be allowed to respond from the back of the bus.)

You'd have to have walked in my shoes to see just how bitterly hysterical this is. I can't count how many times I've read or heard "Reformed" types pouring acid scorn on dispensationalists (usually while misrepresenting them, or picking at some peripheral [or totally-unrelated] bangle) — and then they'll say, "Of course, historical premillennialism is an entirely different matter."

Yet here's a conference presumably organized by educated men, saying in effect, "Huh? Hey, we've already got one premil on the platform; it'd be redundant to have a dispensationalist."

Right. Because they're the same thing.

Except when they're being shredded, ostracized, misrepresented, tarred and feathered.

Got it.

UPDATE: see further thoughts here.

"A Defense of Dispensationalists by a non-Dispensationalist," by Pastor John Reisinger

[This special treat is a scoop. Two months ahead of its appearance in Sounds of Grace, Pastor Reisinger has invited me to share this with you. The tone is, as you'd expect of John, gracious, and this dispensationalist welcomes both him and it. Pastor Reisinger writes:]

I was converted on a Monday, given a Scofield Reference Bible the next day, and enrolled in the Scofield Bible Correspondence Course on the third day. I graduated from an Arminian, Dispensational Bible School. In my first pastorate, I.C. Herendeen, the man who published A.W Pinks books and tracts, came into our congregation. Under God, Mr. Hereunder, patiently taught me the truth of sovereign grace.

At that time the only books teaching Calvinism were written by Presbyterians. Calvinistic Baptists were unheard of. I accepted Covenant Theology as a package deal and left Dispensationalism. I could not buy infant Baptism. About 30 years ago, I began to question the basic presupposition of Covenant Theology and this left me in “no man’s land.”

I have no trouble believing, 1) the “promise made to the fathers” are fulfilled in Christ; 2) believing the NT spiritualizes the kingdom promises; 3) and believing Christ is presently seated on the throne of David. I see no necessity of an earthly millennium but also see nothing stating there will not be one. In many ways, I agree with the A-Mil but not on his basic presupposition that the “Bible teaches there will be no earthly millennium. Seeing no necessity for one and saying Scripture teaches there will not be one is two different things. I am not looking for a millennium but there may be one. I guess if I had to chose a label, I would say I am an A-Mil with a very low level of assurance. Of course it would depend on what book I read last.

Having said all that, I still have several very real problems. One, some of the OT prophecies have a very literalistic ring. Passages like Habakkuk 2:14 are difficult to spiritualize. The only time in history such a promise remotely came close to fulfillment is Christmas and I think Habakkuk means more than that.

Two, Israel is there on the map as a nation, like it or not. Spurgeon, McCheyne and may others preached that Israel would be restored to the promised land. Many scoffed but there they are! No nation that was conquered and never regained its land or its king has every maintained its identity for more than 100 years. It was assimilated into the other culture. Israel was without a land or a king for over 2,500 years, was persecuted by nearly every nation, some of which tried to literally annihilate them off the face of the earth.

Israel today is like a little David surrounded by giant Goliath's. Every once in while one of those Goliaths mess with Israel and get their butts kicked. When that happens, I check my Scofield footnotes and Larkin’s charts one more time just to be sure!

I should add that when evolution hit full force and a lot of Reformed people were “re-thinking” some things, it was the Dispensationalist who were defending the inspiration of the Bible. The Scofield Bible moved it adherents to start hundreds of Bible conferences, Bible schools like Moody Bible Institute, Philadelphia School of the Bible, and many others including Dallas Theological Seminary. Those schools trained and sent 30,000 missionaries to countries all over the world and everyone of those godly young men and women had a Scofield Bible in their suit case.

As I said at the beginning, I am not a dispensationalist, but among my most Godly personal friends some are dispensationalists. Please do not make any snide remarks about them or question either their godliness or scholarship around me.

jgr

Monergism.com lets leaky-Canoneers peddle their goods, BUT...

Most of my readers are probably aware of Monergism.com. It's a pretty wonderful site in many ways, offering articles and sermons and lectures from the broad perspective of Reformed theology.

Now I note that they've got actual representatives of the positions defending both "cessationism" and "continuationism." That is, both men who believe that Scripture is complete and sufficient, and that modern claims to revelatory or attesting sign-gifts are fake and sub-Biblical, and those who want to pretty up the modern claims and sneak in some sort of ongoing semi-revelatory dribble — both, I say, are allowed to present and defend their own positions. In their own voices, with their own arguments.

Interesting, eh? Very interesting.

So I'm immediately wondering: will they have got actual representatives of the positions defending both Covenant Theology and dispensationalism? After all, dispensationalism in no way contrasts with affirming doctrines of grace. Further, the vast majority of dispensationalists stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other Reformed believers in adamantly defending the sufficiency and perspicuity and full authority of Scripture — in contrast to the "continuationist" position.

So one would naturally assume that they, too, would be allowed to present and defend their own approach to Scripture.

(This reasonable openness, for instance, would contrast with the silly obscurantism of the second site discussed here.)

That approach would make sense. It is what clear-eyed rational thinking would move one to expect.

But if I were forced to guess, before checking it out? I'd guess "no." They wouldn't dare let dispensationalists themselves actually present their own view, in their own voices, apart from the caricatured (dare I say "slanderous"?) misrepresentations with which so many "Reformed" tranquilize themselves.

Ah, now I see under Doctrine and Theology a whole section on Covenant Theology. It appears to me that all the speakers are advocates of CT, not critics of it. Okay, so, that's one side.

Oh, but wait. Here it is. I found dispensationalism.

Where is it? Next to "Covenant Theology," as another respectable approach to Scripture?

In your dreams, Phillips.

Ah, no. It is under Heresy and Bad Theology — along with Islam, Open Theism, Postmodernism, Emerging Church, Jehovahs Witnesses, Atheism, Roman Catholicism, and the DaVinci code. Ah, I love the smell of "Reformed" humility and love in the morning.

And yep, what a surprise: far as I can tell, all the speakers are critics of dispensationalism. Not one advocate.

Now that is interesting, isn't it? A position — "continuationism" — that is commonly propped up by such historical and exegetical nuttiness, and very frequently directly causes so much ecclesiastical and personal harm, is presented by its own advocates. Adrian Warnock — a brother who displays an unhealthy obsession with desperate efforts to legitimatize charismaticism, who is so "open" that he can't bring himself to criticize its worst and craziest and most harmful manifestations — he gets to propound his own view.

But dispensationalists cannot be allowed that same respect.

And btw, a huge "Reformed" bogeyman is how supposedly recent dispensationalism is. (I.e. a century or so more recent than Covenant Theology; evidently that was a critical hundred years, emptying the Bible of all previously-undetected wisdom or formulations.)

So help me with the math here. Which is more recent? 1830s? Or 1906?

So Warnock and Piper and Storms get to try their level best to doll up "continuationism" and make it sound Biblical.

But the position held and propounded, to one degree or another, by John MacArthur, S. Lewis Johnson, Alva J. McClain, Eric Sauer, (Spurgeon successor) W. Graham Scroggie, J. Oliver Buswell, Allan A. MacRae, and a host of others — file that one under "Heresy and Bad Theology," and assign it to a hit squad or two.

Sigh.

Pathetic.

Book review: Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths, by Michael J. Vlach

Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths

by Michael J. Vlach
(Theological Studies Press: 2008; 73 pages)

Who wrote the book?

When readers ask me to recommend a good book on dispensationalism, I usually go to the 1965 edition of Charles C. Ryrie's Dispensationalism Today (which I actually prefer over the 1995 revision). It isn't that I agree with Ryrie on everything, but I do think Ryrie makes a sane and sober case, effectively presents some essential thoughts, makes a good argument, and tries manfully to calm some of the hysteria and inaccuracies coming (—alas, still, 34 years later) from critics.

But I still would prefer a more up-to-date work, something sane and solid that you could give to someone unfamiliar with dispensationalism. In this book, Michael Vlach aims at filling that gap — at least partly.

Has he succeeded?

Vlach earned his Master of Divinity degree from The Master’s Seminary, followed by a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His doctoral dissertation was The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An Analysis of Supersessionism, and it is available online, for a fee. Vlach has a web page that looks almost as due for a face lift as mine, and it's bristling with helpful documents. Vlach is an Assistant Professor of Theology at The Master's Seminary, and a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, where he presented a paper on Supersessionism in 2007.

What's in the book?

This is indeed a brief book, with an introduction and four chapters. It weighs in at a scant 73 pages. However, it sells for $8.45, which many are bound to find a bit steep.

Noting that dispensationalism is "popular yet controversial," Vlach observes that the position has been subjected to many misrepresentations and harsh criticisms which assume a readership utterly ignorant of dispensationalism's central tenets. Does dispensationalism deserve to be classed (as it still is by some) with cults and kooks? What are the essentials of the position? Or are they even possible to define?

Vlach believes that essential dispensationalism can be defined, and states this as his purpose:

The purpose of this brief book is to highlight the foundational beliefs of dispensationalism that are truly at the heart of the system. It will also look at misrepresentations and myths about dispensationalism that have muddied the waters of understanding (3, emphases original)

Vlach says that he is a dispensationalist by conviction, not by being married to any given system (5). First and foremost, Vlach aims at being a Biblicist (ibid). As such, he says his own position appreciates elements of the traditional, revised, and progressive schools of dispensationalism (ibid.).

Vlach deals first with the history of dispensationalism (7-12), beginning with J. N. Darby's recognition in the 1800s of Israel's distinction from the church (7), a position Darby said was fully formed for him by 1833 (8). Vlach goes on to discuss three key periods of dominance in the development of dispensationalism: Classical (1802-1940s), Revised or Modified (1950-1985), and Progressive (mid-1980s).

Next comes the essential beliefs of dispensationalism (13-31). I was most interested in this chapter. Vlach discusses Ryrie's three sine qua nons of dispensationalism, which I've generally used, and which I discuss a bit here. John Feinberg's (1988) six essentials are reviewed, as are the seven common features that Craig Blaising and Darrel Bock (Progressive Dispensationalism, 1993) lay out. Vlach notes that not all the suggested distinctives are truly distinctive, such as "the authority of Scripture, dispensations, and the significance of Bible prophecy" (14).

After discussion, Vlach lays out and explains his six essential beliefs of dispensationalism (18-31). Much abbreviated, they are:

1. NT revelation does not override or cancel the original meaning of OT writers "as determined by historical-grammatical hermeneutics" (18)
2. Types exist, but Israel is not a type that is superseded by the church (22)
3. Israel and the church are distinct; the church is not "new" or "true" Israel (24)
4. Though Jews and Gentiles share spiritual unity in salvation, national Israel has a future role (26)
   
5. The nation Israel will be saved and restored with a unique identity and function in the future earthly millennial kingdom (29)
6. The phrase "seed of Abraham" has multiple senses, so that "the church's identification as 'seed of Abraham' does not cancel God's promises to the believing Jewish 'seed of Abraham'" (30).

Chapter Three addresses some myths about dispensationalism, such as the old rancid chestnut that it teaches multiple ways of salvation; that it is inherently Arminian; that it is antinomian; that it leads to Non-lordship salvation; and that it's all about the seven dispensations.

Chapter four deals with a series of questions about dispensationalism. Such as:

• What is a good short definition of dispensationalism?
• Why are you a dispensationalist, and how did you become one?
• What main mistake do non's make in evaluating dispensationalism?
• Shouldn't dispensationalism be rejected because it is new?

And others. Then the book ends with a Conclusion that is more of a summary, followed by — yes, sorry to say it — about eleven pages of endnotes. Eegh.

What do I think of the book?

Vlatch is a very readable writer. He is clear, straightforward, and engaging; and he shows a sense of humor. I do think he'd have benefited from some editing (i.e. to catch repetitions such as "this brief book... this brief book," 3). But not much.

I appreciated Vlach's book, I benefited from it, I'll go back to it, and I recommended it.

I do wish the book were different in two main ways:

First, I fear it will be hard to get many people to pay ~ $10 for a 73-page book. That's a pity, because it is a good book.

As to my second, I'm afraid that I'm going to sound like Roger Ebert, criticizing Fellowship of the Ring because Jackson didn't film Ebert's interpretation of the book. But....

Vlach's stated aim was to define dispensationalism, and clear up some misunderstandings. At the very least, he made a good start towards that end.

What I really wanted was a book at least 2X-3X the length, which featured an aggressive, positive case for dispensationalism. But that wasn't Vlach's design. He apparently did not set out to persuade per se. But that disappoints me, because (A) Vlach seems to have the "chops" to do it, (B) there is such a need for an up-to-date book that unapologetically makes the positive case for dispensationalism, particularly from a Reformed perspective, and (C) Vlach comes teasingly close here and there, but it's beyond his determined scope.

Here's where I still like Ryrie. As is also true of Vlach, Ryrie's tone is very sane and sober; I'd think he'd still go a long way (at least objectively) to address and calm some of the hysterics of those who react to dispensationalism without understanding it, just because it ruffles their tradition or confession. Or, at least, Ryrie does this vis-a-vis the dispensationalism of 40+ years ago. But he also makes a positive general case for dispensationalism.

So I'm still looking for one book that does as good a job of defining dispensationalism as Vlach's book does, interacts with critics as Vlach does to a degree, but also makes the robust, positive, aggressive Biblical case that dispensationalism deserves, and that people need to be able to read.

So here's hoping that this book does well enough to encourage Dr. Vlach to dig in and get (say) Kregel on-board with a 200-400 page book doing just that.

Meanwhile, if you want to get or give a book that sets out what dispensationalism is as to its distinctives, and clears away some fog and rubble — here it is.

Dispensationalism: defined?

I recommend subscribing to the Theological Word of the Day. Each day you'll be mailed a new term, brief definition, and sometimes some recommended reading.

But the last two have been... uneven. I'll pick on today's definition at this blog, and perhaps the other, later, at Pyromaniacs.

The word? Dispensationalism. Here's their definition in full:

A biblical hermeneutic paradigm common in conservative fundamentalist and Evangelical Christian theology. Originating from the Plymouth Brethren in the nineteenth century and popularized in the Schofield Reference Bible in the twentieth century, dispensationalism has three primary characteristics: 1) the call for a consistent literal or “normal” hermeneutic, 2) the separation of Israel from the church, 3) the separation of human history into several distinct epics, “economies,” or dispensations in which God relates to mankind in a distinct way. With regard to soteriological history (history of salvation), dispensationalism teaches that salvation has always been by faith alone, by grace alone, yet the content of the Gospel has been progressively revealed through biblical history. Dispensationalism has a variety of forms and has gone through some recent developments.

Well. For starters, I think I like referring to it as a "biblical hermeneutic paradigm." This correctly takes the focus off of counting or slicing dispensations (which everyone does), charts (which many do and anyone can), or even the timing of the Rapture (which all positions affirm, but with differing temporal location). It correctly isolates the issue as a hermeneutical issue. That, I like a lot.

However.

"Schofield"? Best-selling study Bible since the start of the last century? How about "Scofield"? Eek.

And then after a good beginning and two good distinctives, it slips on the third: "the separation of human history into several distinct epics, 'economies,' or dispensations in which God relates to mankind in a distinct way."

Um, no.

Every Biblical system distinguishes at least two different economies (hel-lo? Old Testament? New Testament?). Most would also grant that pre-Fall is a different set of expectations, and post-Second-Advent is another. Well, that's four — unless the individual is just so angry at dispensationalists that he'll Gumby up words to keep himself different.

But look: if you feel free to eat ham, go to church on Sunday, and ask God for forgiveness explicitly on the basis of Jesus' blood rather than offering an animal sacrifice .... gotcha!

Probably Ryrie's third distinctive is a better one: seeing the glory of God as the center of history, rather than man's redemption.

Thus far, my quibbles.

CdbgD? (Doctor of Calvidispiebaptogelicology?)

A prospective seminary student emailed me, asking which seminaries are Calvinistic and dispensationalist.

As I've often observed, the two systems should be, yet seldom are, bestest-buddies. The grammatico-historical hermeneutic that yields the doctrines of grace, yields the essentials of dispensationalism — yet the two camps seemed to separate early on, and only recently starting to rediscover each others and start patching it up.

So I don't offhand know of a seminary that is officially both five-point Calvinist and dispensationalist.

Best I can say is that both views at least used to be accepted and represented at what is now Talbot School of Theology, and I'm sure both must be welcome at Master's Seminary. I would think you can be both at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

However, I heard that Dallas Theological Seminary ran out its 5-point Calvinists some time ago.

Anyone have anything more up-to-date?

Mac make Big Boom!

Intro. Many readers will know that a blogstorm has been set off by John MacArthur's opening address at the 2007 Shepherd's Conference at his church. The title was something like "Why Every Self-respecting Calvinist is [not "should be"; I checked] a Premillennialist."

If you want to hear it, you'll have to buy it for $2.00. If you want to comment on his talk, I really think you should listen to it. You can purchase it, if you wish, at the link given above.

Mac and me. Because I have the blessing and privilege of blogging with my friend Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniacs, some have very understandably assumed that I work at (or at least attend) Grace Community Church. In fact, I think I've only walked through its doors once. Ironically, it was to attend a prophecy conference and hear Dr. Merrill Unger speak. Since Unger died in 1980, before some of you were born, you know that was hundreds of years ago.

So you know I don't work at or attend GCC. Still, you might assume that I am an unqualified admirer of MacArthur's. This is also not true. I am an admirer, but not an unqualified admirer. I could list off areas of difference or reservation. But that doesn't change the fact that I admire a great deal about him. I admire his unswerving position on the Word, I admire his emphatically Bible-teaching ministry, I admire his concept in starting the Master's College and Seminary. I can't think of many leaders whom I'm happier to see as a guest on (say) Larry King, knowing that not only will he not embarrass me as a Christian, but he'll give solid answers and take the conversation to the Gospel of Christ.

All that to say this: if you assume that I'm going to say something positive about his talk just because he's MacArthur, you've made a miscalculation.

Having said all that. John MacArthur has been okay with "Reformed" folks because he's an unapologetic five-pointer, he's popular, he stresses the Bible and does it well, and he's popular. However, he's known as a dispensationalist (cue scary music). Given that a lot of "Reformed" folks have adopted something more like Rome's approach to eschatology, and given that "Reformed" folks have very often actually characterized dispensationalism as cultic and evil, how is that okay with them?

Because MacArthur once said that he was a "leaky" dispensationalist.

I think many of them interpreted that as meaning that Mac was a bit embarrassed to be a dispensationalist. They thought it meant that he wasn't consistent about it, he wasn't insistent on it, and he wasn't confident of it. So Mac would never make a big thing about it, or embarrass them about their eschatology. So he was okay—just so long as he shut up about prophecy and ecclesiology. Maybe Mac's dispensational, but at least he's got the grace to be ashamed about it.

Now in this talk, "apologetic" and "embarrassed" and "tentative" are not words that one should apply to MacArthur's basic outlines of eschatology.

So I'm hoping that that is at least one good thing that will come out of this: Calvinists who like MacArthur will have to confront the misconception that he's timid and embarrassed about his dispensationalism. It sounds as if, on this one issue at least, MacArthur and I are of one mind: we are Calvinists for the same reason we are dispensationalists, and vice-versa.

Of course the better thing would be if it caused many "Reformed" folks actually to do the semper reformanda thing, take their hermeneutic back to the Bible, and lose the rest of the unhelpful Roman trappings left by Calvin, et al.

Not so far, though, judging by all the crying, chest-beating, and blustering one sees at some places. "That wasn't a shark, and we didn't jump it." All of the shouted insistences, clean-up operations, and table pounding may belie the core embarrassment they feel over their inconsistent hermeneutic. I suggest, you decide.

Confrontation always leaves two choices: change direction, or redouble efforts in the wrong direction. Again, you read it, and you decide which you think is going on.

Of course, Kim "What shark?" Riddlebarger has the answer.

MacArthur isn't really Reformed.

In fact, he's not even a Calvinist!

I. Am. Not. Kidding. If your hermeneutic is closer to Antioch than Rome, you're not Reformed. Read it for yourself, have a good chuckle, shake your head sadly, draw your own conclusions.

Twenty-five stupid reasons for dissing dispensationalism

It's just not "cool" to be dispensationalist, anymore.

The system had particular prominence in the seventies and beyond, which excited a lot of envy and resentment among the non's ("Hey, what about us?"). So they produced a lot of sourpuss, wanna-be literature, trying to take back every area that dispensational writers had held.

They haven't fully succeeded. This really irritates them, because many of them still think that dispensationalists are unsophisticated knuckle-draggers at best, or heretics at worst. It's like listening to evolutionists talk about the Great Unwashed, who they see as too stupid to agree with them, still boneheadedly clinging to inane creationistic notions. They alternate between sniffing in disdain, and wondering why their outreaches fail to penetrate their foes' Stygian darkness.

But anti-dispies have succeeded with some folks, more (I think) through image than substance. They have convinced them that it isn't cool to be a dispensationalist.

Particularly, it's not cool to be Reformed and dispensationalist. In responding to a letter of mine about something entirely different (the problem of evil), decades ago, the great commentator William Hendriksen slapped me down something fierce. I had made the mistake of mentioning in passing that I was a Calvinist, and a dispensationalist. The great man told me you can't be "100% reformed/Calvinist" and dispensationalist. He told me to read this and that book, and not to write him again until I was 100%. As I recall, he even suggested that this doctrinal error lay at the root of my problem with evil.

Yet stubbornly here I am, still unrepentantly both, and still for the exact same reason: when I consistently apply the hermeneutic that God used to save me, I end up Reformed... and dispensationalist.

In the circles that my Reformedicity puts me in, I hear a lot of dissing of Dispensationalism. In hearing that, I also hear a lot of ignorance, a lot of envy, a lot of serious denial. This little essay addresses some of the worst that I most frequently hear. And so, without further eloquence:

1. All of the coolest guys are amillennial/"historical" premill/covenant/whatever. I suspect this is the real reason many adopt amillennialism. They want to be just like Augustine, or Calvin, or Owen, or Packer or Waltke or Whoever, or any of all those cool guys. It's just so cool to be cool. I'll admit it -- I've felt that pull. Just give up, give in, join the RHRG (Really Hip Reformed Guys). Then when they mock and make fun of people who still take all of the Bible seriously, it'll be okay. You'll be on the giving end, instead of the receiving end! Plus, prophecy doesn't require hard work anymore. Just shrug and say, "Jesus. The church. Whatever." Here, I'll show you:
   • Mount Zion to be made the capital of the earth? "Jesus. The church. Whatever."
   • Israel to be fully restored in spite of all her sins? "Jesus. The church. Whatever."
   • Wars and conflicts such as have never happened, followed by unprecedented deliverance for the nation of Israel? "Jesus. The church. Whatever."
   • Nine chapters of detailed prophecy about a temple such as has never yet been built? "Jesus. The church. Whatever."
   See? Cool!
   
   And I'll also say that it's largely true that the coolest have been, to say the least, non-dispensationalists. Most of my greatest theological and otherwise-Christian heroes were not dispensationalists: Machen, Spurgeon, Calvin, van Til, E. J. Young, and on and on.
   
   But then there's that little principle that I also gained at my conversion, and that has saved my spiritual life countless times. I'm a Christian because of Jesus. My judge is God, my rule is His Word. Other believers (dead or living) are important, but not all-important. My business is with God's Word (Hebrews 4:12-13). This focus has kept me Christian through countless instances of treachery, hypocrisy, betrayal, malice -- and I'm not about to leave it when it comes to formulating my theology.
   But if you're going to let peer-pressure mold your theological system, you had best not think too deeply about John 7:48 ("Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?", the Pharisees snort). No, you'll have to embrace your inner approbation-lust, and ignore the fact that it is the opposite of God-centered faith ("How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" -- John 5:44).
   
   Especially try not to think of your Reformer heroes. In their day, all the coolest guys were Roman Catholic.
2. It's new. Sorry, must have missed the memo -- when was the last truth gleaned from the Bible? I knew the Canon was closed to addition; I didn't realize it was closed to study as well. Funny that anti-dispensationalists would effectively relegate Psalm 119:18 to a different dispensation. And, while we're at it, tell me again -- how old are the five Sola's as a formulation? How about the acronym TULIP? Um, Covenant theology -- when was that systematized? And what was the chief objection
   
   raised to Luther by learned Roman doctors at Worms? Or go way back, fifth century -- how old is the doctrine of the Trinity now? "Old as the Bible," you growl? I totally agree. Same for dispensationalism.
3. It's not Reformed/Calvinistic. First, some shocking news: my goal in life is not to be judged as perfectly Reformed or Calvinistic. (I'm hopeful that brother Hendriksen, now with the Lord, would concur.) When I stand before the throne, I don't expect the Lord to say, "Let's see... how Reformed were you?" Anyway, maybe someone can point out where Calvin (or Luther, or Knox, or Zwingli, or Owen) maintained that, after he himself died, nothing remained to be learned, because he/they had been perfect in all his scholarship and thinking, and had exhausted every last bit of truth from the Bible. I can't think that these great men imagined that they had mined every last grain of ore from the vast Biblical treasury, leaving us today only to visit theological museums, or reminisce about how great it must have been to live when the Bible still had more to teach, and we had more to learn.
   
   Hm. "Calvin the Apostle." Don't like it.
   
   One last thought on these first three. If these are really big, determinative factors -- they have been, to a great many of dispensationalism's bitterest critics -- then it seems to me that we owe Rome an apology. In that case, we agree with Rome that we dare not directly delve into Scripture for ourselves. We agree with Rome that we need a Magisterium to filter Scripture for us. Like Roman Catholics, we're not allowed to see anything in Scripture that our (Reformed) Magisterium tells us isn't there; and with Loyola, we should say that white is black (and Israel is the Church), if Mother (Reformed) Church tells us so.
   
4. So many dispensationalists are goofs. Sure they are. I'll tell you another truth: so many Covenant Theology types are goofs. So many amills are goofs. So many Trinitarian inerrantist monergists are goofs. In fact, so many Christians are goofs. Better quit them all, right? Just become an amorphous nihilist? Oh, wait -- lots of amorphous nihilists are goofs, too. Guess I'll just have to exercise my priesthood, and think for myself, under God -- like He says I should (John 12:48; Hebrews 4:13). Next?
5. Dispensationalist writers have made false predictions. First, let's be more accurate. Since another thing to love about dispensationalism is that its advocates also affirm the sufficiency of Scripture, they tend not to be Charismatic, and so they don't fake "prophecy." Therefore, they don't make faux-supernatural predictions, as if they were prophesying. But it's true: some have said "I think X Bible teaching means that Y will happen," and some have been wrong. Second, this game is a cheater's delight. Since the decoder-ring set spiritualizes all unfulfilled prophecy (except the bare fact of Jesus' eventual return) into shapeless goo, they have no specific predictions. No specific predictions = no falsifiability. So when you don't say anything is going to happen in the real world, you'll never be wrong. That's a coward's victory.
   
   I give a lot more credit to the man who expects to see prophecy actually fulfilled in history, and makes a tentative but well-reasoned application that doesn't come to pass, than I do to the counsel-of-despair man who throws prophecy in a blender, reduces it to paste, and then mocks those who don't follow suit.
   
   They are like the modern Charismatic counterfeit of "prophecy," whose perps hide under generalizations so vague that it is impossible to prove them wrong. Zero points for credibility.
   
   Isn't it ironic? Jesus faulted His generation for not looking for the fulfillment of prophecy (Matthew 16:1-3). These oh-so-sophisticateds fault those who do. Thus, they have deftly turned that vice into a virtue.
6. The best scholars hate dispensationalism. Depends on what you mean by "best," doesn't it? I keep hearing that the best scholars hate the Bible. The best scholars hate Calvinists. The best scholars hate Christ. If you've been around academia much, and surveyed its shifting sands, you'll know at least one truth: scholars are just as subject to peer pressure as anyone. Sometimes even more so. I'd say I've not seen too many Profiles in Courage in academia. So go back to #1.
7. But the Reverend Doctor Professor _____ wrote a 600-page book destroying dispensationalism! Yeah. Have you ever noticed that it takes an awful lot of very detailed, sophisticated argumentation to "prove" that a passage doesn't mean what it says? If we're talking about the meaning of yom in Genesis 1, I can say "It means a day" in four words -- but it'll take hundreds, or even tens of thousands to "explain" that yom doesn't really mean what it clearly seems to mean. Once, I was asked if I could explain what a prophetic OT passage meant. "Sure," I replied. "Means what it says." That was my complete answer, and everyone knew exactly what I meant by it. Ohh boy, but that ticked off a guy whose obnoxious new girlfriend was Covenant Theology. But you know, before I was a Christian, I was in a cult whose answer to every uncongenial passage was, "We have to look for the deeper meaning." Funny how the "deeper meaning" was always the precise opposite of what the passage said, and exactly in harmony with what our cult believed. I left that sort of gameplaying behind with my conversion, and anything that even smells like it to me, smells.
   
8. You can't prove all those dispensational distinctives and prophetic features from the New Testament alone! Um, Bunky? Three words? "Plenary verbal inspiration." Dispensationalists do what all Reformed folks say they do: they believe in the whole Bible. Sort of got that idea from Jesus. So, just as no Reformed guy worth anything would accept such a demand as "Prove sovereign-grace election solely from 1 Chronicles 1:1," so no dispensationalist who believes in the principles of the Reformation should rise to the demand, "Prove every detail of your system from 1/3 of the Canon!" There is no passage that teaches everything that every other passage teaches. If so, God would have inspired a Bible with one verse.Or perhaps a better statement would be that God did inspire a Bible with one verse. It's just a really, really long verse. And so, no believer in Reformed principles should indulge in trying to impose such a faulty premise. It's simply not Reformed to do so.
   
9. It isn't a spiritual hermeneutic. Gosh, this one's such a hanging curveball. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Where to start? First, take off that "Plato is my homey" T-shirt, so we can talk. Oops, didn't see that "The Docetists are my crew" T-shirt underneath. Off with that too. So, tell me: the resurrected body of Jesus -- carnal? Or spiritual? I'll play the Jeopardy music while you look up 1 Corinthians 15:44f. (Hint: God made matter. He's really okay with matter. Matter matters. Sin ruined matter, the regeneration will redeem it.)
   
   Finally, if none of that helped you out of your decoder-ring quagmire, this thought: try not to be more "spiritual" than God, 'kay? When God said Messiah would come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), He knew it meant "house of bread" -- but He meant the city anyway. I imagine what a CT would have done with that, before fulfillment: "What God is really saying would have been perfectly clear to the Jews. It was symbolic. Messiah would come from 'the house for bread,' from the storehouse of God's spiritual nourishment, and He would give life, as bread does. Those wooden literalists who look for fulfillment in an actual city are perverting the Word to their carnal imaginations."
   
   Trying to out-spiritual God is really stupid.
10. Dispensationalists are antinomian. Bologna. I'm the former, and yet I'm not the latter. (In fact, gutless-gracers say I'm a legalist.) Makes just as much sense as saying amillennialists are Roman Catholic, because Roman Catholics are amillennial. Not only is there no necessary connection between dispensationalism and gutless-grace insanity, but the very hermeneutic that produces dispensationalism also deals howling, shrieking death to antinomianism.
11. We should interpret the Old by the New. In itself, fine. Show me where the New says the Old is a lie, a fake, a trick -- because that's what replacement theology makes it. What I read in the New Testament is Jesus Christ severely blaming unbelievers for not accepting what's there in plain sight (Matthew 16:1-3; Luke 16:29-31; John 5:45-47). I don't see Him saying, "I really can't blame you for not seeing this -- who could have? It was totally hidden from everyone!" One hears, "The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed." Given the interpretive violence some folks do to the Word, a more appropriate version I've heard might be, "The Old is by the New restricted; the New is on the Old inflicted."
12. You can't take everything literally. Do you mean that literally? Of course you do. {pause}
13. Dispies are over-literal. Have you actually heard a dispensationalist lay out his hermeneutic? People who offer "over literal" as a seriously critique of dispensationalism have seemingly never read a book dealing with hermeneutics, written by a responsible dispensationalist. Try this for an interpretive principle:

    When the plain sense of Scripture makes good sense, seek no other sense. Therefore, take every word in its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and fundamental and axiomatic truths, clearly indicate otherwise

    It's a totally dispensational hermeneutic, and it's an equally dandy Reformed hermeneutic -- or should be. There's quite the chasm between saying "Of course God isn't literally a 'rock'," and saying "Mount Zion -- oh yeah. Has to be the universal Christian church!" Dispensationalists are what all Reformed folks would be, if they were consistent in their hermeneutics.
14. I think Hal Lindsey is stupid, and I like to make fun of him. Really? I think Harold Camping is stupid and, well, he is pretty easy to parody. Is this helpful?
15. I know some big names who used to be dispensationalists, and aren't. Really? I know some big names who used to be Christians, and aren't. I know some big names who used to be Calvinists, and aren't. Besides, when I hear a guy like [big vaunted amill expert "ex-" author] open his mouth on the subject, it's easy to see why he's an "ex." No evidence of a clue about dispensationalism in what I see him saying now.When Peter, all full of himself, tells Jesus "We have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:69), Jesus replies, "Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil" (John 6:70). I take it that our Lord saw Peter as relying on the consensus; so Jesus throws back at Peter, in effect, "...and what if your consensus becomes a consensus of one? What will you do then?" When Judas left, was Jesus less the Messiah and Holy One? (To be clear, my only point in this is that the issue is the Word and truth and what I, myself, do with it, and not how many are voting for an interpretation of it. Some -- in fact, I'd say most -- of the finest, holiest men and women who ever cracked a Bible were not dispensationalists.)
16. Dispensationalism is divisive. Just what Arminians say about Calvinism. I don't care from divisive. Everything Biblical is divisive to someone. My only concern: is it Biblical?
17. Dispensationalism is defeatist. Dispensationalism is just what you are when you treat all the Bible respectfully. That's defeatist? Let's see: man cannot solve his own problems, Christ must deliver His saints personally, must personally come in power, grace, and glory to set up His kingdom, human sin and rebellion are shown to be absolutely inexcusable, and Christ reigns forever to the eternal glory of the Triune God. Hunh. Sounds like Calvinism to me. But then again, happy-face Christianoids think Calvinism is defeatist. Guess there's a little Pelagius in everyone, eh?
18. Dispensationalism is fatalistic. Funny criticism, coming from Calvinists. If Calvinism is not fatalistic (and it isn't), neither is dispensationalism.
19. Dispensationalism is escapist. Hm, I hear a similar complaint about the Gospel all the time. "So let me get this straight: you sin and sin and sin, and then just believe in Christ, and it's all gone? But some humanitarian who isn't a Christian goes to Hell? How convenient." Viewed from one angle, yep: salvation is convenient. More than convenient, it's glorious, it's stupendous, it's amazing. When you think of all that Christ accomplished for His people on the Cross, all He rescued us from, and delivered us to -- yep, pretty darned convenient. The pre-tribulational Rapture is small potatoes compared to that great salvation, a fortiori. It's hard to understand shrugging at God's hot fudge sundae, but then carping when He reaches out to place a cherry on the top. Compared to the deliverance from Hell in which all Christians believe, deliverance from the great tribulation is just really nice of God. But certainly not non-credible, on the lame grounds that it is "escapist." What kind of criticism is that from a professedly sola Scriptura guy, anyway?
    
20. Dispensationalism teaches a false offer by Christ. This is yet another one of those oft-heard criticisms that is amazingly ironic to hear from Calvinist lips/pens. It is precisely the criticism Arminians of all stripes make of Calvinist evangelism. "You're telling this non-elect guy that if he believes in Christ he'll be saved, even though he'll never believe and never be saved, because he's not elect." We Calvinists reply that the offer is absolutely genuine: if the man repents and believes, he will be saved.So was the presentation of Christ to Israel.
    
    I genuinely wonder, since such otherwise-smart people keep making this stupid criticism -- what do you think would have happened if Israel had, en masse, repented and believed in Christ at the First Advent? Nothing? Nothing would have been different? What if Adam had never sinned? What if Noah had swatted those two mosquitoes? What if, what if, what if?
    
    I've got another. What if we left off the what-if's, and contented ourselves with the text of Scripture? Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be Reformed?
21. "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him" (2 Corinthians 1:20a). As if there's a dispensationalist who disbelieves this verse. I'd suggest that it's the decoder-ring set that disbelieves it. Dispensationalists believe that Christ will make good on all the Trinity's promises, as He carries out all the will of the Father, and is King of the mediatorial Kingdom. It's the CT's who would turn this verse to "For all the promises of God find their 'Ha-ha, fooled you!' in him," or "For some of the promises of God find their No in him."
22. Dispensationalism teaches two ways of salvation. Sigh. Maybe if this is answered for the 950,000th time, it will go away? This old corker has been responded to and documented more times than a department-store "Santa" has said "Ho ho ho." So what, exactly, are we talking about? Oh, you mean like this? "Grace offers escape from the law only as a condition of salvation -- as it is in the covenant of works --, from the curse of the law, and from the law as an extraneous power." Oh yeah, that's bad. What rotten dispensationalist wrote that? That "rotten dispensationalist" Louis Berkhof (ST, p. 291). Allis and others have made similar statements that, isolated, sure sound like offers of two methods of salvation. Statements capable of misunderstanding and misrepresentation are not the sole provenance of dispensationalists. Golly, it'd be nice to wake up tomorrow to a world in which I can focus on the text, and not constantly see the discussion derailed by red herrings like this one. Could there be a reason why anti-dispies don't want to do that?
    
23. "Hey, I'm a CT/amill/postmill/preterist whatever, and I use grammatico-historical exegesis on everything!" Suuuuure you do, Bunky. And I'm a muscular, slim 25-year old published author with multiple doctorates who pastors a successful church and  teaches in seminary — plus I have a full head of hair! It's really more than just a river in Egypt for you, isn't it, brother? When you tell me that Israel is the church, that only the prophetic curses have realtime fulfillment, but that the prophesied blessings are all spiritualized, you and G-H exegesis have long since gone the way of the Beatles. CT is your Yoko. [NOTE: had to update this one!]
24. Dispensationalism divides the people of God. Wait -- isn't it complementarianism that does that? The Bible says, "there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28) , but complementarians teach that men and women are still distinct, even though they're in Christ, and have distinct roles. Calvinists/Reformeds tend to be complementarians, yet they affirm that men and women are distinct in Christ in one way, yet they affirm that they are one in Christ, in another way. Isn't that a contradiction? "But-but-but," sputters a Reformed complementarian, "that's stupid! You can be distinct, and yet one! Look at the Trinity! The Persons are distinct, yet they are one God! They have different functions, and there is an economy of relations, yet they are one! That's an inane criticism!" Oh, I totally agree. It's inane. It's stupid. It's lame. So... why do you go for the same inane, stupid, lame line of reasoning when it comes to Israel?
    
    I just keep wondering why the same people who have no trouble understanding why men and women can be distinct and yet one, fall all apart into hysterics and start doing horrible things to the Bible when it comes to Israel. Why can't Israel have a certain and sure ethnic future (as God promised, in the starkest and most undeniable terms, about a gazillion times), and yet be part of one people of God? Why do we have to turn God into a liar and a promise-breaker (see Jeremiah 31:35-37), in order to salvage some preconceived construct we made up?
    
    Having said all that, I don't think it's fundamental to dispensationalism to make divisions as stark as some pioneers did, as if Israel's eternity is 'way over there, and the Church's is right over here, and never the twain shall mix. I don't tend to think that way, myself.
25. Dispensationalism fails to see Christ in every verse of the Bible. Again with the being-more-spiritual-than-God sin. This is maybe one of the most damaging Reformed traditions (in the worst sense of the word): the insistence by some of putting perfectly innocent texts on the rack, and torturing them until they scream "Jesus!" This turns God into a Clintonesque, smooth-talking trickster. He fools His audience into thinking He's talking about Israel, but He's really talking about something they couldn't have conceived of. He offers them an egg and some bread, and then gives them a stone and a serpent. "I promise to bless you, I swear it. {Later} Oops, presto! Not really you at all! Someone else! But I do have a dandy curse just for you -- and this time, I really do mean you!"
    
    Christ is indeed all over the Bible, directly or indirectly (Luke 24:27, 44, etc.). But to insist that a text is unworthy of God if it really talking about what it seems to be talking about is (A) to adopt a suicidal hermeneutic, (B) to make God into the worst unethical bait-and-switch salesman, and (C) to pour shame on the very hermeneutic of Christ and the apostles. If we abandon Scripture to adopt this hermeneutic, we invalidate Jesus' constant refrain to His enemies:
    

    "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:45-47)

    If this decoder-ring hermeneutic were true, his enemies could justly and correctly have replied, "There is no way we could be judged by Moses' writings, or the prophets. God said 'Israel' and meant 'not ethnic Israel at all, but the Christian church.' He named cities, but didn't mean them. He promised full national restoration in the most specific terms, again and again, but never meant it. All His threats He meant exactly as He said them, and all His promises meant something totally unrelated. So no, Jesus, Your teaching turns revelation into obscurement, and gives us a perfect, bona-fide excuse for rejecting You. God didn't give us the right decoder-ring when He put out the garbled, encrypted code. It's not our fault." Of course this is nonsense. Christ and the apostles treated the OT with full respect. Bethlehem meant Bethlehem, a donkey meant a donkey, Jerusalem meant Jerusalem, Israel meant Israel. It was because the OT was to be read as outlined in point #10, above, that Jews (and everyone) could then (and now) be held guilty before God: because they rejected the plain and clear sense of the text. What was bad for them is bad for us.
    
    God forbid we "honor Christ" in theory by dishonoring Christ in practice.
    
    This is the hermeneutic God saved me from in saving me from the cult of Religious Science, decades ago. We did the same thing, always finding "deeper meaning" that was in fact opposite meaning to texts we simply didn't like, because they didn't fit into our system. By the grace of God, the folks I'm criticizing don't do it to Christological, soteriological, or other passages. Only to prophetic passages. If they did the same across the board, they'd not be Christian. It is not dishonoring to Christ to believe that He said what He meant, and meant what He said. The reverse is what dishonors Him, no matter how honorable the intent.

I reserve the right to revise and expand this list, but I see these as top repeat-offenders.

So in close: do I respect anti-dispensationalists? Some of the anti's are people I immensely respect in many ways. They are my betters, and that, too, in many ways. I mean that with total sincerity.

But in their criticism of dispensationalism?

Not so much. These brothers and sisters are better than the position that's holding them back. Would that they'd take their fine minds, the fervent and godly hearts, their mighty pens, and their bold spirits, and do as much justice to Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the other prophets, as they have done to Paul and the other apostles. It's hard work. It'd be great to have their help, to have them lay some bricks, instead of just throwing them.

For more information:

• Check out this essay (and its links) on what dispensationalism is and isn't.
• For a grounding, explication, exposition, and application of the hermeneutic that (equally) produces the Sola's and dispensationalism, see this essay.