41. Despite the dispensationalists’ claim that the descendents of the patriarchs never inhabited all the land promised to them in the Abrahamic covenant and therefore, since God cannot lie, the possession of the land by the Jews is still in the future; on the contrary, Joshua wrote, “So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it… Not a word failed …
Category: Biblical Studies
Apologies for not posting for the a while. Among other things I was doing a conference in MI. Anyway, here are some more responses to the Nicene Council. I again wish to stress that we ought to be able to discuss our disagreements without branding each other as heretics or any such pejorative term. I certainly don’t have all the answers! Albeit, I think I have something to say in answer to these “Theses.” We are on Thesis 37: …
31. Despite the dispensationalists’ strong commitment to the “plain interpretation” of Scripture (Charles Ryrie) and its dependence on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks as “of major importance to premillennialism” (John Walvoord), they have to insert into the otherwise chronological progress of the singular period of “Seventy Weeks” (Dan 9:24) a gap in order to make their system work; and that gap is already four times longer than the whole Seventy Weeks (490 year) period. Response: The 70 Weeks prophecy is not at …
A Biblical Covenant is a thing of tremendous importance for the student of Scripture. For one thing, these covenants (made e.g., with Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, David) were made by God Almighty Himself. When God deigns to make a covenant with men one can be sure that He has some great strategic purpose in mind. In which case it is crucial to pay close attention to what is stated, otherwise the intention of God forecasted in the covenant …
26. Despite the dispensationalists’ interpretive methodology arguing that we must interpret the Old Testament on its own merit without reference to the New Testament, so that we must “interpret ‘the New Testament in the light of the Old’” (Alan Johnson), the unified, organic nature of Scripture and its typological, unfolding character require that we consult the New Testament as the divinely-ordained interpreter of the Old Testament, noting that all the prophecies are “yea and amen in Christ” (2 Cor 1:20); …
24. Despite the dispensationalists’ partial defense of their so-called literalism in pointing out that “the prevailing method of interpretation among the Jews at the time of Christ was certainly this same method” (J. D. Pentecost), they overlook the problem that this led those Jews to misunderstand Christ and to reject him as their Messiah because he did not come as the king which their method of interpretation predicted. Response: It is not advisable to refer to Dispensational interpretation as “literalism” …
18. Contrary to the dispensationalists’ structuring of law and grace as “antithetical concepts” (Charles Ryrie) with the result that “the doctrines of grace are to be sought in the Epistles, not in the Gospels” (Scofield Reference Bible – SRB, p. 989), the Gospels do declare the doctrines of grace, as we read in John 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” and in the Bible’s most famous verse: “For God so …
11. Contrary to the dispensationalists’ structuring of redemptive history into several dispensations, the Bible establishes the basic divisions of redemptive history into the old covenant, and the new covenant (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6; Heb 8:8; 9:15), even declaring that the “new covenant … has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete is ready to disappear” (Heb 8:13). Response: No dispensationalist denies the division of the Bible into OT and NT. Neither does he deny …
Introduction to this Series Monergism.com, that excellent source for all things Reformed and Covenantal, has recently posted some more rebuttals of Dispensational Theology on its website. Included is a set of 16 lectures by James Grier and a series of “95 Theses Against Dispensationalism” brought together by a group of believers (mostly if not all of them Partial Preterists) calling themselves by the collective nom-de-plume, ‘The Nicene Council.’ There is also a DVD out criticizing this pernicious doctrine to which …
The Theological-Historical Motif of the Bible The God of the Bible is a God who is intimately connected with what He has made. This world is personal in a very genuine way. This personal dimension to reality is what makes the Cross of Christ comprehendible (because the “Sin Problem” – what is wrong with this world – must be resolved from above, on behalf of sinners) and also interpretative of history (since it is God’s “marker” testifying to His ongoing …