Do Dispensationalists Take Things To Far?

Here are a couple of fairly plain, simple, and indisputable facts for consideration. First, for all intents and purposes, Israel was literally destroyed in 70 AD. That's a simple fact of history. It has nothing to do with sectarian and/or eschatological points of view. As a consequence, Christian doctrines developed within the reality there was no nation of Israel. In other words, national Israel was irrelevant to Christian doctrine simply because it does not/did not exist. As a consequence, no Christian view of the Church (ecclesiology), or salvation (soteriology), or end times (eschatology) considered Israel relevant. This is true even of Historic Premillennialism (a premillennial point of view substantively different than the Dispensational perspective).

It took the early Church about 400 years to solidify, formalize, and unify its doctrines. Despite those efforts there remained a minority population within Christendom subscribing to different perspectives. In many ways Christian history can be construed to be a history of disagreement and resolution, but with the core doctrines continuously holding majority status both ordinally (statistically) and normatively (theologically).

That all changed with the introduction of Dispensationalism. John Darby, the chief progenitor of Dispensationalism is the guy who radically changed the handling of scripture and core Christian doctrines long held prior to his lifetime. It was Dispensationalism that made Israel relevant to Christian doctrine. In so doing, various theological and practical aspects of Christianity changed. In some places these changes affected what was previously, ordinarily, core Christian doctrine. The premise recently asserted in this thread, "Israel and the Church are two different dispensations," is quite literally an invention of the 1800s and not a position previously held by the Church.... because the Church has historically taken passages Romans 11 literally and understood the Church is grafted into an already existing tree and is neither a separate tree nor a set of branches so different from those already existing that they are unrelated. For most of Christendom, both historically and doctrinally,


Israel is irrelevant.


Dispensationalism teaches otherwise. This is an example of Dispensationalism/Dispensationalists taking things too far.

Fix your HTML tags. 


And as far as your last post goes, I have no disagreement. Scripture states what scripture states. Scripture also makes its own implications. The clear statements found in Romans 9:6-8,

Romans 9:6-8
6But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: "But through Isaac your descendants shall be named." 8That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

• Not everyone who is Israel is Israel. 
• Neither are they all descendants of Abraham (with whom the covenant was previously made).
• The descendants of Abraham and those that are Israel come through Isaac. 
• They are not children of flesh. 
• It is the children of promise who are the descendants of Abraham and children of God.

That is what is actually stated. There's no mention of "true" Israel or "false Israel. There is Israel and there is not Israel, and there's no reason to change scripture's wording or add things to scripture that it does not state. Since the stated context is God's promises haven't failed AND "For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel," AND Paul is writing to AND applying this to a mixed Jewish and Gentile audience converted to Christ, the implications are there is not distinction between Israel and the Church as was previously posted. Romans 9:6 disproves that claim! It does not support it. The promises God first made to Abraham (not Israel) were coming true in the New Testament era in the body of Christ, his bondservants, his saints, those who God had called out, the Church. 

Paul goes on to make the point clear by citing the prophet Hosea stating, "Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved,'" and before concluding that position of his narrative affirming Christ he says, 

Romans 9:30-32
30That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, but the righteousness that is by faith; 31however, Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. 32Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith...


Paul is treating the two, the Jw and the Gentile, the Israelite and the pagan as parts of a singular entity: those who are the promise of God, not born of flesh but of the promise and Spirit of God. The two are made one. If we follow the example of Paul then we reject the notion Israel and the Church are two completely different entities and we do so based on scripture and we realize the Dispensationalist view is an addition to scripture based on a Dispensationalist reading of scripture based on a Dispensationalist hermeneutic that was literally invented thousands of years after the scriptures were revealed. 

The Dispensationalists take the OT literally but not the NT. If Paul's words in Romans 9 are taken literally then the literal reading precludes two entities. 

Follow the example of Paul, not Darby. Read the Old Testament in the same exact manner the New Testament Jewish writers read it. When we stick to scripture, beginning with what is plainly stated and inferring first only what scripture itself implies then we have agreement. So I have no disagreement with the content of your last post. It sticks to scripture. The previous one did not. 


God's people have ALWAYS lived by faith. The righteous live by faith. That is the measure of one's Parentage, not fleshly bloodline, fleshly will, or fleshly work. No matter who a person is or from whence s/he comes s/he is a child of God if s/he has faith and that is just as true of the Pre-Hebrew, the Jew, and the Gentile. The two groups are 1) children of God and 2) not children of God. One's bloodline is irrelevant. There will be many Jews and many Gentiles raising hands in worship to their common Savior in the end and there will many Jews and many Gentiles bending knee in submission to their Lord one their way to the fiery lake. Those are the only two groups asserted by scripture. All other divisions mentioned are subordinate to that. 


























HTML tags: when you quote a post with an intent to respond I recommend typing some word below the quote box immediately. Doing so works as a placeholder and prevents the space from being deleted when the quote is edited. It's an oddity of ProBoards. I don't know of any other forum/blog provider that has this problem, but there is a simple solution. Mark the space with a word or three before editing. Hope this helps.

Thats a question for the Admin

I'm pre-mil, pre-trib, Futurist.  Which may as well be called Dispensational.  Still not sure what, if any, distinction there is there.  Lordship?  Sure.  Law of Christ/Love?  Absolutely.  Any use for the law of Sinai?  Nope.  None.

And Calvinist.  Figure that one out.  Guess it was just predetermined. 

That was me a couple years ago much the same as John MacArthur