But Irenaeus also taught the main elements of Covenant Theology. This may seem confusing to modern minds. But we need to remember that this was well over a thousand years before either Dispensationalism or Covenant Theology were reduced to a formal system of doctrine. For Covenant Theology was first reduced to a formal doctrine in the 1500s, and Dispensationalism several hundred years later.
So Irenaeus also said:
“Then, too, Isaiah himself has plainly declared that there shall be joy of this nature at the resurrection of the just, when he says: ‘The dead shall rise again; those, too, who are in the tombs shall arise, and those who are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew from Thee is health to them.’ And this again Ezekiel also says: ‘Behold, I will open your tombs, and will bring you forth out of your graves; when I will draw my people from the sepulchres, and I will put breath in you, and ye shall live; and I will place you on your own land, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.’ And again the same speaks thus: ‘These things saith the Lord, I will gather Israel from all nations whither they have been driven, and I shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the sons of the nations: and they shall dwell in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell in it in peace; and they shall build houses, and plant vineyards, and dwell in hope, when I shall cause judgment to fall among all who have dishonoured them, among those who encircle them round about; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God, and the God of their fathers.’ Now I have shown a short time ago that the church is the seed of Abraham; and for this reason, that we may know that He who in the New Testament ‘raises up from the stones children unto Abraham,’ is He who will gather, according to the Old Testament, those that shall be saved from all the nations, Jeremiah says: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, who led the children of Israel from the north, and from every region whither they had been driven; He will restore them to their own land which He gave to their fathers.’”(Against Heresies, book V, chapter XXXIV, section 1.)
Thus we see that Irenaeus said that the seed of Abraham is the Church, and through that concept he applied the Old Testament prophecies about the return of Israel to the church. This, again, is an element of Covenant Theology and is wholly incompatible with Dispensationalism.
So it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to assign Irenaeus, or any other ancient writer, to any particular modern system of interpretation, other than that all the early Christian commentators were solid futurists.
This can be seen in a comment penned by Jerome in the fifth century. He said, concerning Daniel 7, "We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise, who will overcome three of the ten kings... Then after they have been slain, the seven other kings will bow their necks to the victor." (Jerome’s comments on Daniel 7:8, as found in “Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel,” pg. 77, translated by Gleason L. Archer, Jr., published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1958.)