Dispensationalism I

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I.                    IMPORTANCE OF DISPENSATIONALISM

A.       Dispensationalism Takes God’s Word Literally

1.   Dispensationalism is the only approach to scripture that gives full authority to the very words of scripture.  Other systems, such as covenant theology, tend to spiritualize and weaken the clear statements of the Bible. 

2.   God places great emphasis on the very words of the Bible

a.    Deuteronomy 8:3 - And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

b.    Proverbs 30:5 - Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

c.    2Timothy 3:16 - All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

d.    1Thessalonians 2:13 - For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

3.   Three important questions in their proper order:

a.     What does the passage say?

b.     What does the passage mean?

c.     What does the passage mean to me?

4.   Some examples where other systems diminish the plain meaning of scripture:

a.     The return of the Israelites to their land.

(1)   Amos 9:14-15 - And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

(2)    Israel will be finally returned to their land and planted so that they will never again be pulled up out of their land.

(3)    John Calvin says of this passage in his commentary on Amos, “In what sense then has God promised what we have just explained?  We see this when we come to Christ; for it will then be evident that nothing has been in vain foretold: though the Jews have not ruled as to the outward appearance, yet the kingdom of God was then propagated among all nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun; and then, as we have said in other places, the Jews reigned.”  You will notice that he destroys the plain statements in the book of Amos by spiritualizing it away.

b.     The conditions of the millennial kingdom

(1)    Isaiah 11:6-7 - The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

(2)    The Bible speaks of a time when predators will eat grass alongside their former prey.  It describes the time of God’s kingdom on earth.

(3)    According to Matthew Henry, the wolf with the lion is fulfilled thus, “men of the most fierce and furious dispositions, who used to bite and devour all about them, shall have their temper so strangely altered by the efficacy of the gospel and grace of Christ that they shall live in love even with the weakest and such as formerly they would have made an easy prey of…Christ, who is our peace, came to slay all enmities and to settle lasting friendships among his followers, particularly between Jews and Gentiles: when the multitudes of both, being converted to the faith of Christ, united in one sheep-fold, then the wolf and the lamb dwelt together…”

(4)    According to Albert Barnes, the passage cannot be taken literally because, “such a state of things could not occur without a perpetual miracle, changing the physical nature of the whole animal creation.  The lion, the wolf, the panther, are made to live on flesh…To fit them to live on vegetable food, would require a change in their whole structure, and confound all the doctrines of natural history…But where is the promise of any such continued miracle…?’

(5)   Each commentator who denies the literal fulfillment of this passage seems to have a slightly different take on its spiritual fulfillment.  This occurs because a spiritual fulfillment has no true laws of interpretation.  The teacher can mold the meaning into whatever truth he wants to teach.  Only dispensationalism gives full force to the very words of scripture.

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Dispensationalism I Index                         Lesson Four

 

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