A Refutation of Dispensational Theology

On our “Welcome” page I made the statement that “I follow a literal, historical, grammatical, and somewhat-dispensational approach to interpreting the Scriptures,” and I have been asked by several individuals to clarify what I mean by that phrase, and more specifically what I mean by the term “somewhat dispensational approach.”

But first it is necessary to define “dispensational” before I can clarify in what ways my approach to Biblical interpretation is similar and in what ways it is different. “Classic Dispensationalism” is a system of interpreting the scriptures, of which Dr. C. I. Scofield was the major proponent, and in which tradition I received nearly all of my formal theological training. This system teaches that:

The Scriptures divide time (by which is meant the entire period from the creation of Adam to the "new heaven and a new earth" of Rev. 21:1) into seven unequal periods, usually called dispensations (Eph. 3:2), although these periods are also called ages (Eph. 2:7) and days, as in "day of the Lord."

These periods are marked off in Scripture by some change in God’s method of dealing with mankind, or a portion of mankind, in respect of the two questions: of sin, and of man's responsibility. Each of the dispensations may be regarded as a new test of the natural man, and each ends in judgment, marking his utter failure in every dispensation. Five of these dispensations, or periods of time, have been fulfilled; we are living in the sixth, probably toward its close, and have before us the seventh, and last: the millennium.

— Dr. C. I. Scofield. The Seven Dispensations:
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, Chapter 2

In each of these “dispositions,” this system teaches, God had a different standard of righteousness by which men would be judged (that is, a different test for, or method of, salvation), each ends with mankind's failure to comply and an associated judgment, and that each dispensation, along with its standard of righteousness supplants or replaces its predecessor.

1. Man innocent. …
Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: Do not eat of the tree of knowledge.

Genesis 2:16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

2. Man under conscience. …
Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: Do good and do not do evil.

Genesis 3:22 Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

3. Man in authority over the earth. …
Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: Believe God and build an ark.

Genesis 6:16 "You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it [with] lower, second, and third [decks]. 17 "And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which [is] the breath of life; everything that [is] on the earth shall die. 18 "But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark--you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.

4. Man under promise. …
Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: Believe God’s promise.

Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, From your family And from your father's house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you.

5. Man under law. …
Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: Obey God and keep His commandments.

"Again the grace of God came to the help of helpless man and redeemed the chosen people out of the hand of the oppressor. In the wilderness of Sinai He proposed to them the covenant of law. Instead of humbly pleading for a continued relation of grace, they presumptuously answered: "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do."

— C. I. Scofield, op. cit. (Emphasis added.)

Exodus 19:5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth [is] Mine.

6. Man under grace. …
Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: Confess Jesus as Lord and believe in the resurrection.

Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

7. Man under the personal reign of Christ. …
[Salvation Gospel in this dispensation: None, only saints enter this dispensation]

… [W]hen Satan is "loosed a little season," he finds the natural heart as prone to evil as ever, and easily gathers the nations to battle against the Lord and His saints, …

There are, I believe, a number of serious problems with this interpretation, the most obvious of which are these three:

1. God holds mankind to a different standard of righteousness in each “dispensation.”

The Bible says that God has but one standard of righteousness: “be holy”

Le 11:44 - Show Context

For I am ADONAI your God; therefore, consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am holy; and do not defile yourselves with any kind of swarming creature that moves along the ground.

Le 11:45 - Show Context

For I am ADONAI, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. Therefore you are to be holy, because I am holy.

Le 19:2 - Show Context

"Speak to the entire community of Isra'el; tell them, 'You people are to be holy because I, ADONAI your God, am holy.

Le 19:24 - Show Context

In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, for praising ADONAI.

Le 20:7 - Show Context

Therefore consecrate yourselves -you people must be holy, because I am ADONAI your God.

Le 20:8 - Show Context

Observe my regulations, and obey them; I am ADONAI, who sets you apart to be holy.

Le 20:26 - Show Context

Rather, you people are to be holy for me; because I, ADONAI, am holy; and I have set you apart from the other peoples, so that you can belong to me

Eph 1:4 - Show Context

In the Messiah he chose us in love before the creation of the universe to be holy and without defect in his presence.

1Th 4:3 - Show Context

What God wants is that you be holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality,

1Pe 1:16 - Show Context

since the Tanakh says, "You are to be holy because I am holy."  

2. God provides a different method of salvation in each “dispensation.”

The Bible says that God provides but one method of salvation for all men in all ages: “believe (trust) God”

Ro 4:3 - Show Context

For what does the Tanakh say? "Avraham put his trust in God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness."

Ga 3:6 - Show Context

It was the same with Avraham: "He trusted in God and was faithful to him, and that was credited to his account as righteousness."

Jas 2:23 - Show Context

and the passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled which says, "Avraham had faith in God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness." He was even called God’s friend.

3. God makes and then breaks His covenant with mankind for each successive “dispensation.”

The Bible says that God does not change and His covenants cannot be broken or changed.

Mal 3:6 - Show Context

"But because I, ADONAI, do not change, you sons of Ya'akov will not be destroyed.

Jas 1:17 - Show Context

Every good act of giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father who made the heavenly lights; with him there is neither variation nor darkness caused by turning.

Ge 9:16 - Show Context

The rainbow will be in the cloud; so that when I look at it, I will remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of any kind on the earth."

Ge 17:7 - Show Context

"I am establishing my covenant between me and you, along with your descendants after you, generation after generation, as an everlasting covenant, to be God for you and for your descendants after you.

Ge 17:13 - Show Context

The slave born in your house and the person bought with your money must be circumcised; thus my covenant will be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant.

Ge 17:19 - Show Context

God answered, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you are to call him Yitz'chak [laughter]. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

2Sa 23:5 - Show Context

"For my house stands firm with God -he made an everlasting covenant with me. It is in order, fully assured, that he will bring to full growth all my salvation and every desire.

1Ch 16:17 - Show Context

and established as a law for Ya'akov, for Isra'el as an everlasting covenant:

Ps 105:10 - Show Context

and established as a law for Ya'akov, for Isra'el as an everlasting covenant:

Isa 24:5 - Show Context

The land lies defiled under its inhabitants; because they have transgressed the teachings, changed the law and broken the everlasting covenant.

Isa 55:3 - Show Context

Open your ears, and come to me; listen well, and you will live - I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the grace I assured David.

Jer 32:40 - Show Context

I will make with them an everlasting covenant not to turn away from them, but to do them good; I will put fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not leave me.

Jer 50:5 - Show Context

They will ask the way to Tziyon; and, turning their faces toward it, will say, 'Come, join yourselves to ADONAI by an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten.'

Eze 16:60 - Show Context

Nevertheless, I will remember the covenant I made with you when you were a girl and will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

Eze 37:26 - Show Context

I will make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant. I will give to them, increase their numbers, and set my sanctuary among them forever.

Heb 6:16-20

Now people swear oaths by someone greater than themselves, and confirmation by an oath puts an end to all dispute. Therefore, when God wanted to demonstrate still more convincingly the unchangeable character of his intentions to those who were to receive what he had promised, he added an oath to the promise; so that through two unchangeable things, in neither of which God could lie, we, who have fled to take a firm hold on the hope set before us, would be strongly encouraged. We have this hope as a sure and safe anchor for ourselves, a hope that goes right on through to what is inside the parokhet, where a forerunner has entered on our behalf, namely, Yeshua, who has become a cohen gadol forever, to be compared with Malki-Tzedek.

If it were possible for God to break His covenant with Israel, then He could also break His covenant with “the Church” and there would be absolutely no assurance that anyone could ever obtain eternal life. It would therefore be impossible for anybody to “believe (trust) God”, in which case there could be no possible hope for eternal life.

And just so there is no misunderstanding of the duration of God’s covenants ...

From Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary

Main Entry: everlasting

¹ev·er·last·ing

lasting or enduring through all time : eternal

Main Entry: eternal

¹eter·nal

1 a: having infinite duration : everlasting

b: of or relating to eternity

c: characterized by abiding fellowship with God

2 a: continued without intermission : perpetual

4 a: valid or existing at all times : timeless

Now that we have, I believe, shattered the “myth” of dispensationalism, let me explain what I mean by the phrase: “I follow a literal, historical, grammatical, and somewhat-dispensational approach to interpreting the Scriptures.”

Literal

I believe that Ruach HaKodesh inspired the recorders of the Sacred Message in such a way that every sentence, every word, every letter of the original autographs was delivered to mankind exactly the way that God intended them to be written, without diminishing the personality of the writer in any way.

I agree with the old adage, “When the literal sense makes sense, then to interpret in any other sense is to create nonsense.”

Grammatical

I believe that in order for the Scriptures to be correctly understood, the interpreter must strive to determine the correct grammatical context in which the text was originally written. For example, poetry must be interpreted as poetry; allegory must be interpreted as allegory; history must be interpreted as history; prophecy must be interpreted as prophecy. Thus when the Master said, “I am the bread of life,” He did not mean to imply that He just came out of the oven, and when He said, “I am the door,” He did not meant to imply that He had a lock and hinges.

Every language has its own idioms, and in order to properly interpret Scripture we must be aware of the language in which the text was written and the idioms that were common to that language. We must understand the text in the same way that those to whom it was originally written would have understood it. Thus when we say in English, “I was just pulling your leg,” we must understand that an English-speaking reader would understand it to mean, “I was just kidding.”

Contrary to what most interpreters believe, I believe that the original Apostolic Scriptures (the so-called “New Testament”) were written in the language in which those writers would have been most comfortable, probably Hebrew but possibly Aramaic, and translated from Hebrew (or Aramaic) into Greek for transmission to the Diaspora. I believe that when Constantine ordered the destruction of all Hebrew scriptures, those original Hebrew versions were destroyed and were therefore lost to us. The Apostolic Scriptures were written by Jews, to Jews, about the Jewish Messiah; in order to be correctly interpreted, they need to be interpreted in their original Hebrew/Jewish sense.

I also believe that when the Torah says that Moshe (Moses) wrote down the Torah as God delivered it to him (Exod. 24:4), it does not mean that twenty or so different individuals over hundreds of years wrote down scraps that were later assembled into the Torah and attributed to Moshe Rabbeinu. The Messiah attributed the Torah to Moshe (Matt. 8:4; Matt. 19:7,8; Mark 1:44, Mark 7:10; Mark 10:3; Mark 12:26; Luke 5:14; Luke 16:29-31; Luke 20:37; Luke 24:27; Luke 24:44; John 3:14; John 5:45-46; John 7:19; John 7:22-23), and He did not correct people when they said that Moshe wrote the Torah (Mark 12:19; Luke 20:28), and He confirmed that Moshe wrote about Him (John 5:46).

Historical

Every event occurs within its own historical context. In order to understand the writer’s intent, it is necessary to understand the historical and social context in which the events occurred and in which the text was originally recorded. For example, to think of ancient Babylon in terms of modern-day Iraq would be totally inappropriate. Likewise, to interpret the Apostolic Scriptures outside of their first-century historical Jewish context produces error. We must remember that when the Apostolic Scriptures were written, there was no “Church” as we know it today, and there were no “Christians”; there was only the Temple and the Synagogue, in which Messianic and non-Messianic Jews and Gentiles worshipped the God of Avraham, Yitz'chak, and Ya'akov together. The great question in the minds of many Christians today is, “Is it possible for Jews to be saved?” The question in the mind of the first-century Messianic Jews was, “Is it possible for Gentiles to be saved?”

Somewhat Dispensational

Part of the process of properly interpreting the Scriptures in their historical content is to understand that God did not reveal everything that He wanted man to know about Him all at once. Although Adam and Eve walked with Him in Eden, it is highly unlikely that they would know that He would become the atoning Sacrifice for their sin in Jerusalem 4,000 years later. When He called Avraham out of Ur, even when He had lunch with him by the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18), Avraham probably had no inkling of the symbolism that would be provided by the Tabernacle hundreds of years later.

The Prophets knew that God would send His promised Messiah, but they were probably very confused about how Messiah ben Yosef, the suffering Messiah, could also be Messiah ben David, the Reigning Messiah.

For me, the time periods that Dr. Scofield defined as “dispensations” are no more than convenient “mile markers” on the road of history to remind us of what God had revealed to man up to that time. (This concept is also known as “progressive revelation.”) As we study the Scriptures, it is important to realize which time period we are reading about, and understand that the books in the Bible are not in chronological order. For example, the book of Job was probably the first book in the Tanakh to be written. It is believed that Job was a contemporary of Avraham (ca. 2100 BCE) who lived approximately 635 years before God gave the Torah at Sinai and two millennia before Yeshua came.

Job said, “But I know that my Redeemer lives, that in the end he will rise on the dust; so that after my skin has been thus destroyed, then even without my flesh, I will see God. I will see him for myself, my eyes, not someone else's, will behold him” (Job 19:25-27). Even though Job believed in an eternal God and his own resurrection, we must not make the mistake of assuming that he knew anything about the Torah or the death and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua.

What we find when we study the Scriptures and pay attention to the historical context, we find a progressive revelation, in which God reveals Himself to mankind a little at a time,

“To whom would He teach knowledge,
   And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those {just} weaned from milk?
   Those {just} taken from the breast?
For {He says,} ‘Order on order, order on order,
   Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.’”

Indeed, He will speak to this people
   Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue,
He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,”
   And, "Here is repose," but they would not listen.

So the word of the LORD to them will be,
   “Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
   A little here, a little there,”

                               — Isaiah 28:9 - 13

If we neglect this essential interpretive principle, we forget extremely important facts, like the fact that Avraham, Yitz'chak, and Ya'akov knew nothing about the Torah, or we believe that Jews before [or even after] Calvary were “saved” by obeying the “Law.” We also arrive at very erroneous conclusions like thinking that “Paul and Silas went around planting churches” or that when Jews become completed in their Messiah they become “Christians” and stop being Jews.

By neglecting the historical context of the Apostolic Scriptures, we wind up with such ridiculous assumptions as: “Jesus was a good Christian boy who went to church every Sunday,” and “the Fourth Commandment has been repealed and the Sabbath has moved to ‘The Lord’s Day’ on Sunday.” We fail to realize that the Shliachim (Apostles) who wrote the “New Testament” knew nothing at all of the “Church.”

In fact, the “Church” as we know it did not come into existence in the first century, the second century, or even the third century of the Common Era. In approximately 311 CE (which would be the fourth century), Emperor Constantine created a new Roman state religion by modifying the Roman version of the Babylon Mystery Religion, dressing it up with “Bible words,” and changing the names of the pantheon of “gods” and “goddesses” to the names of prominent first-century Messianic Believers, particularly the Apostles [MORE], and called it “the Church” or “Christianity.” Up until that event, Judaism (which included Messianic Judaism, which was called “the Way,” as a sub-set, or sect of Judaism) was one of the many “authorized” religions of the Roman Empire.

“Wait a minute!" someone is saying. My Bible says, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch” (Acts 11:26, NIV).

That is exactly part of the problem that arises when we ignore the historical context. If we understand that the writers of the Apostolic Scriptures spoke Hebrew and/or Aramaic, and that the original autographs were penned in their native Hebrew (or Aramaic) and then later translated into Greek for transmission to the Gentile and Hellenized (Greek-speaking) Jewish believers in the Diaspora, then we can figure out how the word “Christians” wound up in the book of Acts. The word “Christ” is derived from the Greek word Christos, which means “anointed.” The Hebrew word for “anointed” is Mashiach, or Messiah. So what Luke actually wrote is that “it was in Antioch that the talmidim for the first time were called ‘Messianic.’” That sentence was then translated literally into Greek, and since before that time there was no concept of (or Greek word for) Messianic, the Greek-speaking translators had to “coin” a completely new Greek word that could convey the meaning of the Hebrew word for “Messianic.” To the root word Christos they added the suffix “ianous.” The intended readers would have had no problem at all understanding what Luke meant by the newly-coined Greek term for “Messianic.” Centuries later, the Greek word Xristianouvß (Christianous) was simply transliterated into English and wound up as “Christians” (Acts 11:26). It would be grossly unfair to call this a “translation error,” but for us to think that the first-, second-, and third-century Messianic believers thought of or referred to themselves as “Christians” would be totally anachronistic.

Of course, the same would apply to the word “Christian” in Acts 26:28 and 1Peter 4:16.

The Bottom Line

I hope that this has helped clarify my use of the term “somewhat dispensational” to describe my historical approach to Biblical interpretation, though now having written this explanation, I wonder if there is not some term that I should use to better state this method, and in time I will probably find that word and use it. My ultimate intention for the use of “somewhat dispensational” was to mean that to arrive at accurate conclusions about the Scriptures, the interpreter needs to remember that God has revealed His will to men in progressives stages, that all of these stages must be considered in their historical context, and that the so-called “dispensations” provide us with convenient names to use for those periods of history.

I hope that this has served to clarify my position.

Except where otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations on this page are from The Complete Jewish Bible
The Complete Jewish Bible - Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern.
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