What is a Dispensationalist Theology? For one reason or another traditional Dispensationalism has been abandoned by all but a relatively few Bible students. The wild success of the Left Behind novels is no sound indicator to the contrary. Two much better indicators which point decisively the other way are the degree of serious attention given to this point of view in most Biblical and Systematic theologies, which is nugatory; and the stunning lack of scholarly works in these areas by …
Category: Biblical Studies
Part One, Two, Three The Question of the Incarnate Christ What do we do with Christ’s human soul in this matter of transmission? Do we commit the Apollinarian heresy of the Early Church, which says Christ had a human body but a divine soul? Or are we to fall into the Eutychian heresy, where Christ was said to have had a human body mixed with the divine soul? Those are not orthodox positions. But there are certain passages which speak …
The pieces I was working on are not quite finished so I thought I would give this one another spin. A Dispensationalist is a Christian who sees in Scripture certain clear divisions in the progress of revelation in which God governs history. At its best this is done on the basis of the covenants revealed in the Bible.A “dispensation” (Gk. “oikonomia”) is an administration or economy, wherein, within a certain period of time (known to God, but afterwards revealed to …
This is the belated third installment of a series I started last year on the topic. I do apologize for dropping the ball on this one. The material is taken from a lecture from the course, “The Doctrine of Man & Sin” at Telos Biblical Institute. Part Two The Traducianist Position: Traducianism (from a word meaning ‘to sprout’), holds that both the material-bodily substance of a person, and the soulish part of a person is passed on from parent to child …
Part Seven “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” – Matt. 6:13 I am going to comment on these two petitions as one, since they form a sort of couplet. The fact of evil is what makes necessary both of these petitions. Temptation is never to do good! This life is a life filled with various temptations. But why would we have to petition a holy God not to lead us into temptation? …
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This petition, especially when coupled with the addendum in v. 14-15 (“if you do not forgive others the Lord will not forgive you”) has caused concern for some of God’s people. Let me say first that this passage is not concerned with forgiveness of sins and justification on the basis of the cross and resurrection. Certainly, that is not how the disciples would have understood Jesus. Rather, what is in …
Part Five In this last post I intend to do three things. First, I will be drawing the conclusion that there are two very different ideas and hence definitions of “progressive revelation” (PR), and both operative words mean something very different both separately and together, depending on who is using them. Thus, there is no really agreed upon definition of this term within Evangelicalism (or, indeed, biblical studies generally). Second, I want to quickly address the straw man issue (I’ll …
This is a transcript of a lecture taken from the course on “The Doctrine of Man and Sin” at Telos Biblical Institute Part One Problems with Creationism’s view of God creating new souls in individual bodies: 1. What about sin? · If God is creating new souls in each individual body then how does that soul become sinful? Or are we back to the old Platonic view that the body is sinful and that somehow by contact with the material body, …
This is a transcript of a lecture taken from the course on “The Doctrine of Man and Sin” at Telos Biblical Institute How do we get our souls? How are our souls transmitted to each of us? Three Distinct Views of How the Soul has been Transmitted in the History of Christianity · The Pre-Existence of the Soul · Creationism · Traducianism First – the Doctrine of the Pre-Existence of the Soul [Obviously, we know this is not taught by …
As previously noted, I was asked to represent Traditional Dispensationalism for a set of interviews conducted by Lindsay Kennedy. Two far more noteworthy contributors; Darrell Bock (Progressive Dispensationalism), and James Hamilton (Historic Premillennialism), were also interviewed. After the interviews were completed, each man was given the opportunity to ask one of the others a question. Darrell Bock asked me about Acts 2 and the Throne of David. I drew Jim Hamilton and promptly snuck-in two questions. The second was deliberately …