What do you call this dispensation?

[Jerrysch]

I would really like to understand dispensationalism a lot better than I do. I know there's different kinds. Who here is a dispensationalist and what kind are you? What caused you to adopt your version of dispensationalism?

Yours truly in Christ,
sojourner

Ah, a thread that offers a good discussion. I did not set out to be a dispensationalist, I did however set out to understand the Bible in a literal way. (see my bolg as to what I mean by that). When a consistant literal view of the Scripture is employed, well it just leads you to agree with the 3 defining tennants of dispensatinalism.

 

[Jerrysch]

Do you call it The Church age or the age of Grace, or both. I am not sure about defining this as the age of grace as all are saved through grace from the beginning.

One more question. In this age, are we chosen of God, or do we choose Him? I have heard some good scripture and arguements both ways. Personally, I think free will is so important to having a heart for God that I have trouble with any predestination ideas.

Lets get some good dispensational discussion going and make this thread honest again.

You are right, any person who was/is justified in any timescape was/is justified by faith, as a result of grace.
Yet that is the title which someone gave this age. Yet what we call it is only for our sake God is not bound by our conventions, is He?

 

[Jerrysch]

The present dispensation can be called either the church age or the age of grace. Most dispensationalists call it the dispensation of grace. The name is not that important, what matters more is recognizing the beginning (Acts 2) and end of the present dispensation.

Dispensationalists believe salvation has always been by grace through faith. Grace has always been present in God's relationship with mankind, from Adam onward. So the dispensations are not different ways of salvation.

The present dispensation is called "grace" not because of the absence of grace in previous dispensations, but because more has been revealed. The Messiah is now known and a new body created, the church, with both Jews and Gentiles as co-heirs.



The question regarding free will/predestination (or Calvinism/Arminianism) is "outside" dispensationalism - that is, dispensationalists take a variety of views. There are Calvinist dispensationalists and Arminian dispensationalists, and those who choose to take neither side.

IMO both are true. God has chosen us and we have chosen him.



I'm more than happy to engage in a straightforward and honest discussion.


LDG

A veru fine post bravo!

 

[Jerrysch]

I'm a dispensationalist, a progressive dispensationalist to be more exact.

Dispensationalism can be sliced many different ways. Theologically, there are the mainstream dispensationalists, which consist of traditional and progressive varieties. There are two additional minority groups, classical dispensationalists and what is referred to as ultradispensationalists. Ultras include the variety of Mid-Acts views (9-13) and the rare Acts 28 view. The mainstream and ultra camps rarely have anything to do with one another: each has separate churches, schools, etc.

LDG

I had not heard any suggest a distinction between traditional and classical... Maybe I just don't understand what you posted?

 

[Jerrysch]

I have been a dispensationalist since the mid-1970s. I was a traditional dispensationalist until 1992. That year, while I was in seminary, I listened to Bock and Blaising explain the progressive dispensationalist view. I've been a progressive dispensationalist ever since.


LDG

What did they present that caused you to become a PD? Oh yeah, what Seminary?

 

[Jerrysch]

I had the privilage of hearing Pastor Paul Van Noy lecture on his modle of the dispensations. Since I was mostly ignorant of the idea I can't say I learned much. But what I've seen leads me to the conclussion dispensationalism is good for teaching, biblical context, and viewing the progression of the relationship between man and God, but it should in no way be involved in personal beliefs or tied to faith. Inside or outside of dispensations "Mere" Christianity remains the same.

Why not? I have found that recognizing the distinction between Israel and the church as being one of the most important things that I have learned over the last ten years, from then on, now I am beginning to understand the Gospels and recognize what Jesus was doing and speaking of.

 

[Jerrysch]

I don't know what I am in the class of, as I just got saved by a miracle when my sis [Southern Baptist preacher's wife] interceded in intercessory prayer for my soul and the LORD answerd her prayer of travail and gave me New Birth in Him -though we did not converse on the matter and she lived 2500 miles from me -and no one had internet or cheap telephones to freely talk, or to often talk together; we poor folk communicated by letters back then, sent by US Postal services.

Woah hoo!!!

There is joy today, it has been so long since I heard anyone speak of becomming a Christian here on CF, what a joy it is to hear your story!!! Welcome to the family, just wait and see what God has in store for you!!! Ho Ho!! And freedom from the punishment for your sins!!! I was on a thread where there were those who didn't think they needed freedom, and they actively worked against recieveing it. Welcome welcome.

 

[Jerrysch]

And I do not believe that anyone is saved by doctrine, but by Jesus Christ, only; and I do not believe that these things are salvation issues, that is, the pre-trib rapture of the Church and the gifts of the Spirit to the Church.

No one is saved by doctrine, yet doctrine is important, in that it is how a person takes the teaching of the Scriptures and makes it his or her own. The Bible is not organized doctrinally, that is you don't find issues under different headings, justification is spread throughout all the pages of Scripture, doctrine is finding them all and putting them into order, we all must build our own doctrine what does the Bible say about truth that all is doctrine, what does the Bible say about sin, that is doctrine too, yet it is scattered throughout the Bible and we have to hunt it down and tie it all together, that is doctrine. We make our decisions for life from this foundation of doctrine. Should I pay all my taxes??? The Bible does not directly address this issue, but our doctrine which we build from Biblical consepts gives us the answer, No we must not cheat on our taxes. More later

 

[LamorakDesGalis]

I had not heard any suggest a distinction between traditional and classical... Maybe I just don't understand what you posted?

The earlier dispensationalists such as Darby and Scofield are called Classical dispensationalists. Later dispensationalists such as Walvoord and Ryrie revised some of the beliefs and works of these earlier dispensationalists. Walvoord revised Chafer's Systematic Theology, and in the 1960s, a committee of dispensationalists revised the Scofield Bible.

These revisions occurred in large part due to the shifting emphasis to a literal hermeneutic. Many of the early classical dispensationalists held to a "dual" heavenly/earthly type of hermeneutic, where for example an OT passage might have both a literal meaning for Israel and a "spiritual" meaning for the church. Some even spoke of a sharp eternal duality between God's earthly people (Israel) and God's heavenly people (Church). For the later traditional dispensationalists, the eternal state was seen as a dispensation where there was no eternal duality.

Today there are a few dispensationalists who still adhere to the classical camp. Miles Stanford is one. He often refers to his view as Pauline dispensationalism, which has often been confused with Mid-Acts "Pauline" dispensationalism. But Stanford is not Mid-Acts. Like traditional dispensationalists, Stanford says the church began in Acts 2. Unlike traditional dispensationalists, Stanford said that there is nothing regarding the church in the OT, and that the church was still a mystery until it was "doctrinally" revealed by Paul. At Stanford's site, he goes into more detail with what he disagrees concerning traditional dispensationalism.


LDG

 

[LamorakDesGalis]

What did they present that caused you to become a PD? Oh yeah, what Seminary?

The seminary is Dallas Theological Seminary. Prior to hearing Bock and Blaising speak, I had been wrestling with Acts 2, where Peter preached his sermon and quoted Joel 2. The first part of the quote concerned the pouring out of the Spirit, the second part concerned the end-times signs in the heavens, and the third part concerned salvation - (Acts 2:21 says "and everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved."). Also Peter didn't quote Joel exactly, and I was puzzled by these changes.

The interpretations I had run across were either/or with regards to fulfillment. Either Peter's quote of Joel was completely fulfilled or it wasn't fulfilled at all. So either the pouring out of the Spirit was emphasized as fulfilled and the end-time signs were glossed over, or the end-times signs were emphasized as unfulfilled and the pouring out of the Spirit glossed over. These interpretative explanations were unsatisfactory to me, so this was in the back of my mind where there were/are a lot of other unresolved issues.

Bock and Blaising's explanation of Acts 2 and the quote of Joel 2 was something which put all the pieces of the interpretative puzzle together and made a lot of sense to me. They explained why Peter made certain changes in the quote. They explained that the passage is an "already but not yet" fulfillment - that the pouring out of the Spirit was an initial event that happened on the day of Pentecost, but that the end-time signs were not yet fulfilled on Pentecost. So there is tension between initial fufillment and future (final) fulfillment.


LDG

 

[Jerrysch]

The earlier dispensationalists such as Darby and Scofield are called Classical dispensationalists. Later dispensationalists such as Walvoord and Ryrie revised some of the beliefs and works of these earlier dispensationalists. Walvoord revised Chafer's Systematic Theology, and in the 1960s, a committee of dispensationalists revised the Scofield Bible.

These revisions occurred in large part due to the shifting emphasis to a literal hermeneutic. Many of the early classical dispensationalists held to a "dual" heavenly/earthly type of hermeneutic, where for example an OT passage might have both a literal meaning for Israel and a "spiritual" meaning for the church. Some even spoke of a sharp eternal duality between God's earthly people (Israel) and God's heavenly people (Church). For the later traditional dispensationalists, the eternal state was seen as a dispensation where there was no eternal duality.

Today there are a few dispensationalists who still adhere to the classical camp. Miles Stanford is one. He often refers to his view as Pauline dispensationalism, which has often been confused with Mid-Acts "Pauline" dispensationalism. But Stanford is not Mid-Acts. Like traditional dispensationalists, Stanford says the church began in Acts 2. Unlike traditional dispensationalists, Stanford said that there is nothing regarding the church in the OT, and that the church was still a mystery until it was "doctrinally" revealed by Paul. At Stanford's site, he goes into more detail with what he disagrees concerning traditional dispensationalism.


LDG

Thanks!! I am sudying all of these men's ideas and now I will have to read your post a whole lot conser to see just where I fit in.

 

[Jerrysch]

The seminary is Dallas Theological Seminary. Prior to hearing Bock and Blaising speak, I had been wrestling with Acts 2, where Peter preached his sermon and quoted Joel 2. The first part of the quote concerned the pouring out of the Spirit, the second part concerned the end-times signs in the heavens, and the third part concerned salvation - (Acts 2:21 says "and everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved."). Also Peter didn't quote Joel exactly, and I was puzzled by these changes.

The interpretations I had run across were either/or with regards to fulfillment. Either Peter's quote of Joel was completely fulfilled or it wasn't fulfilled at all. So either the pouring out of the Spirit was emphasized as fulfilled and the end-time signs were glossed over, or the end-times signs were emphasized as unfulfilled and the pouring out of the Spirit glossed over. These interpretative explanations were unsatisfactory to me, so this was in the back of my mind where there were/are a lot of other unresolved issues.

Bock and Blaising's explanation of Acts 2 and the quote of Joel 2 was something which put all the pieces of the interpretative puzzle together and made a lot of sense to me. They explained why Peter made certain changes in the quote. They explained that the passage is an "already but not yet" fulfillment - that the pouring out of the Spirit was an initial event that happened on the day of Pentecost, but that the end-time signs were not yet fulfilled on Pentecost. So there is tension between initial fufillment and future (final) fulfillment.


LDG

I think you have the substace of a very good discussion thread!! I think there is more to this PD too, (of course)
yet thank you for your responce. One thing, i have learned over the years, that sometimes something making a lot of sense can actually head you into the wrong dirrection, but this is not a criticism but one student of the Scripture to another, indeed I value your thoughtful responces here at CT.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

No one is saved by doctrine, yet doctrine is important, in that it is how a person takes the teaching of the Scriptures and makes it his or her own. The Bible is not organized doctrinally, that is you don't find issues under different headings, justification is spread throughout all the pages of Scripture, doctrine is finding them all and putting them into order, we all must build our own doctrine what does the Bible say about truth that all is doctrine, what does the Bible say about sin, that is doctrine too, yet it is scattered throughout the Bible and we have to hunt it down and tie it all together, that is doctrine. We make our decisions for life from this foundation of doctrine. Should I pay all my taxes??? The Bible does not directly address this issue, but our doctrine which we build from Biblical consepts gives us the answer, No we must not cheat on our taxes. More later

Thank you for you nice words, Jerry, in the prior post.

Doctrine does not save us, Revelation of the NAME of the LORD saves us, which is the New Birth we receive by His Spirit -but doctrine is the milk, first, and then the meat we grow strong in the LORD by.

If we do not learn by study of the Scriptures after we are born again,, with the Holy Spirit as our teacher, then we are stunted and not much use for the labor in the harvest of souls, which He is sending laborers into, to gather for His name, in this age of the harvest of Pentecost -ongoing- till the end of this age, which ends at the beginning of the "Last Day" of earth's seven, or week, of one thousand year days [and He raises up teachers to parse the Word, under His anointing, which we receive by the Spirit's anointing, also, giving us agreement within our inner man by the Scriptures revealed, and not because someone just says something].