4. Shall We Dispense with Dispensationalism?

4

Shall We Dispense with Dispensationalism?

Arbitrary Periods

Now, it is clear at once that some of these categories are quite arbitrary, as if God dealt with Noah in a distinctly different way than He dealt with Abraham, or as if human government has not been here for millennia. It is also clear that something is missing, namely, the future, seven-year Tribulation period, which is a staple of dispensational theology. Somehow, that finds a distinct category of its own between the last two dispensations, since, according to pre-Trib teaching, it is clearly not a time of grace, nor has the Kingdom arrived.

Israel versus the Church

As explained by Stephen R. Miller in his commentary on Daniel,

Just as God focused his attention on the Jewish people for about two thousand years, these past two thousand years his attention has been focused on the Gentiles. However, just as many Gentiles were saved during the Old Testament period, in this present age there are many Jewish believers. At the end of the present age, God will again deal with Israel in a special manner.

That is why, we are told, Paul referred to this as “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God” (Ephesians 3:9 ESV ), “the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations” (Romans 16:25–26 ESV ). No one saw this coming, and that is because it was hidden between God’s past dealings with Israel and His future dealings with Israel. After all, when you read the Old Testament, you see God’s past, present and future interaction with Israel, as a result of which the nations of the world will come to know the God of Israel. But where is there anything about a period of two thousand years (or more) during which the Lord will focus on those nations (i.e., the Church) while the people of Israel languish in exile?

To put this in graphic form, dispensationalists see the three periods of Law, Grace and Kingdom like this:

So, just as you can safely remove parenthetical comments from a sentence without changing the overall meaning, when you remove the Church from the earth, the focus returns to the original subject, namely, Israel.

To illustrate this in sentence form, I could say: “I have been married to Nancy (whom I met in 1974) since 1976, and we have two children and four grandchildren.” Those parenthetical words (“whom I met in 1974”) do not affect the overall sentence, which reads just fine without them: “I have been married to Nancy since 1976, and we have two children and four grandchildren.” In the same way we could say: “God chose Israel to bring salvation to the world, and Israel failed for a season (during which time God raised up the Church), but in the end, Israel will turn back to the Lord and fulfill her mission and calling.” Those parenthetical words about the Church can be safely removed without changing the overall thrust of the sentence: God chose Israel, and Israel failed for a season, but God will use Israel in the end.

That is why the early dispensationalists divided up the New Testament as well, teaching that some of it was for Israel and some of it was for the Church, since, they taught, Israel was saved by works, the Church by grace.

In their view, Jesus came into the world as Israel’s Messiah, offering His people the Kingdom. Israel rejected the offer, which was then withdrawn, and God turned His attention toward the Church, comprised of Jews and Gentiles who believed in Jesus. Accordingly, the Sermon on the Mount was not intended for believers today. Instead, it was meant to be the constitution of the Kingdom of God, which the Jewish nation rejected. But, we are told, in the future it will be the law of the land during the millennial Kingdom.

Some dispensationalists, such as E. W. Bullinger, had an even more extreme view, relegating all but Paul’s prison epistles to Israel. Very little of the New Testament was left for the Church! But even though his views were repudiated by the vast majority of dispensationalists, the fundamental divisions between the Dispensation of Law (Israel), the Dispensation of Grace (the Church) and the Dispensation of the Kingdom (Israel again) remain. Without these, there is no dispensationalism, and without these, there is no need for a pre-Trib Rapture.

After all, if there is only one people of God, why remove hundreds of millions of them by way of the Rapture while leaving another group behind? Why does the Church get to feast for seven years in heaven while the Jews get slaughtered on the earth? Why does one group enjoy heaven itself while the other group experiences hell on earth? And why is it that God’s timetable for Israel cannot begin again until the Church is taken out of the way?

Israel not-so-versus the Church

But there is also no question that God’s purposes for Israel and the nations culminate together in Jesus, in “the Church,” as opposed to the Lord taking His Church out and then fulfilling His purposes for Israel. As Paul explained in Ephesians 2:

For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In His flesh, He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that He might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross and put the hostility to death by it. When the Messiah came, He proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. The whole building, being put together by Him, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord. You also are being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:14–22 HCSB

Did you grasp the significance of Paul’s words? Did you see any hint that the Church and Israel were distinct and separate entities? To the contrary, Paul stated that God “made both groups one,” meaning He joined together Jewish believers and Gentile believers in one spiritual family, with these Gentile believers now becoming part of the larger commonwealth of Israel. So, while Jews remain Jews and Gentiles remain Gentiles, and while Israel is not confused with the nations and the nations are not confused with Israel, God has called together one family of all believers in His Son, Jesus. And that family is called the ekklesia , meaning the Congregation, the Messianic Assembly, the Church.

To be sure, dispensationalists have the merit of taking the Old Testament promises to Israel very seriously, believing that they will literally come to pass in the future. And they recognize the importance of Israel in God’s plan of redemption. But you can take these promises seriously and recognize the importance of Israel without accepting a pre-Trib Rapture. And you can do all this in the context of the Great Commission, which begins in Jerusalem, goes into all the world and ends in Jerusalem. It is one sacred movement, starting with the Messiah leaving Jerusalem and culminating with the Messiah returning to Jerusalem, as God gathers together His great worldwide family consisting of saved Jews and saved Gentiles alike.

The order basically looks like this:

Many dispensationalists will actually agree with this outline, but that only underscores our basic question: Why then make such a sharp distinction between Israel and the Church? Is it not one family the Lord has been building the whole time?

Without a doubt, God has specific purposes for the nation of Israel, and without a doubt, the Church does not negate those purposes. At the same time, Israel fulfills its destiny as part of the larger family—the Church—as opposed to fulfilling its destiny outside the Church. That is why, in Romans 11, after affirming God’s irrevocable calling on Israel, even while they were in a state of unbelief, Paul has this to say:

Just as you [meaning Gentile believers] were formerly disobedient to God, but have now received mercy due to their disobedience [meaning, the disobedience of Jewish nonbelievers], so they too have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.

Romans 11:30–32 NET

So Israel disobeyed, because of which mercy came to the Gentiles and by which they were saved; now it is time for the Gentiles to show mercy to Israel, through which Israel will be saved. This hardly speaks of the Church being taken out of the way in order for God’s purposes for Israel to be fulfilled. Rather, it puts the Church right in the middle of God’s final dealings with Israel, reaching out in love, praying and interceding, sharing the Good News, showing mercy.

Some Radical Interpretive Gaps

But that is not how dispensationalists understand the text. Instead, they see the first 69 weeks culminating with the death of Jesus—in other words, they see these first 483 years occurring consecutively—but they believe that the seventieth week is still future, meaning that there is roughly a 2,000-year gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks.

Is there the slightest hint of such a scenario in Daniel 9? Not at all. Is there any indication that the first 483 years are consecutive while the last seven years are separated by two millennia? Absolutely not. Why then do dispensationalists read the text in such a disjointed way? It is part of their interpretive grid, one which puts the entire Church age in a parenthetical category. Once the Church is removed from the scene, the clock begins ticking again, or, in this case, the counting of the weeks of years continues. In the end, a prophecy that clearly speaks of what would take place during the days of the Second Temple, which, again, was destroyed in AD 70, is now interpreted with reference to a future Temple, one not yet built. And all this without the slightest hint in the text.

It is true that non-dispensational interpreters might see some minor gaps between the three groups of years (49, 434, 7), perhaps allowing for several decades to unfold. But that is a far cry from having an unexpected gap of 2,000 years, almost minimizing the importance of what took place in the first 483 years. This would be like an NBA coach telling his players, “Men, I want you to go out and give me your very best 48 minutes of basketball, especially in the closing 2 minutes, when it is so easy to win or lose the game.” But what he really meant was, “Men, I want you to play hard for the next 46 minutes, but the final 2 minutes won’t be played for another 50 years. Until then, everything is on hold.” That is what I meant by the so-called Church age being parenthetical. God’s plans for Israel are on hold until the Church is raptured. Then He will get back to finishing His plan of redemption.

Of course, dispensationalists believe that during the Church age, God is setting the stage for Israel’s salvation, and that is one reason they have been such faithful supporters of Israel. But they firmly believe that Israel’s redemptive clock will not start ticking until the Church is taken out of the way. And it is only then, during the Tribulation period, that Daniel’s seventieth week will be fulfilled.

To be sure, there are verses in the Old Testament that are intentionally divided by the authors of the New Testament, such as Isaiah 61:1–2. Jesus quoted this about Himself in Luke 4:18–19, ending with “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” which means that He stopped before reading “the day of vengeance of our God.” In this, His inaugural sermon in His hometown, He was putting His emphasis on God’s mercy, on a season of the Lord’s special favor, a time of offering grace to His nation. But throughout His ministry, He warned about divine judgment in very strong terms, describing the punishment that would come if His people rejected Him (see, for example, Luke 19:41–45; 21:20–24; 23:26–31; Matthew 21:33–45). One generation later, that judgment came, just as He predicted. There was hardly a gap of two thousand years, which dispensational interpretation of passages like Daniel 9 requires.

Now, read through Daniel 9:24–27 without getting hung up on every interpretive detail, focusing on one question only: Does it seem like these “sevens” are consecutive, or does there seem to be an immense gap between the sixty-ninth “seven” and the seventieth “seven”? Here’s the text for your reading convenience:

Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.

Daniel 9:24–27 ESV

Again, you might have questions in terms of the meaning of specific words and phrases, and we can debate exactly when the prophecy began (in other words, exactly when in the fifth century BC the word went forth “to restore and build Jerusalem”). But it seems very clear that we are dealing with a period of 490 years, with minimal, if any, gaps. The idea that a whole age (the Church age, or the Dispensation of Grace) must be inserted between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week of years is a perfect illustration of how the pre-Trib reading of the Scripture must be imposed on the text rather than read out from the text.

Conclusion