what dispensationalism has wrought

[Guest]

Jesus was a minister to the Jews and talked to Jews, Romans 15:8

I never said He wasn't.

Clearly the Church started on Pentecost, That is when everything changed, without a dispensational point of view it is impossible to reckon the scripture without many contradictions.

The Church started at pentecost?

Matt 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Matt 5:1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him.

Acts 11:26 The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

Matt 18:15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Jesus began the Church. Jesus had disciples before pentacost. The Spirit was first given in John 20;

22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit".

Anyway, after saying all that, it is true the Spirit was poured out on many at Pentacost. I don't see how what you are saying makes a dispensational point. What "changed" other what Jesus said would happen. Jesus said:

Acts 1:8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

They certainly recieved power, but people were coming into the kingdom before this.

Luke 16:16 "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.

and after:

Acts 28:30For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul taught the same thing Jesus did.

I think maybe you should read more of those commentaries before making such a statement, disregarding The position without fully understanding it. Your choice.

Thanks for that. I've spent years studying the dispensational view and it's unbiblical (since I can't find it in the Bible, that is). That's my opinion. Anyway, we can share our opinions here.

You could also study views other than the dispensational view as well. Maybe you have, you didn't say either way.

[Guest]

Well Sean, maybe you have not studied enough, I have seen it from both sides, there is unlta-despensationalism which is the case most people see and take as the representation of the dispensational position, administrations are clearly part of God's dealings with man at different times. We do not have a temple now do we? Animal sac rice?

1 Corinthians 2:6-7
(6) We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
(7) No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom…

That is exactly right ladies and gentlemen. It is a Sacred Secret.

1 Corinthians 2:7-8
(7) a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
(8) None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

To read more about the Sacred Secret, go here
http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... le&sid=578
It is much to entailed to lay it out here.

To read a more thorough explanation on dispensationalism go here:
http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... ew_topic=2

And here:
http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... w_topic=61
There is a good bit of reading commentary from the Word of God, but to try to sum it up,
There is only one God, but He gave different rules at different times for people to live by. Dispensationalism is a way to understand these changes, and thus to better understand the purposes of God and how we are supposed to live today. Every Christian is aware that God no longer requires animal sacrifices, but few realize the radical extent of the changes that took place at Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian Church

Opponents of Dispensationalism decry it as a heretical view that threatens biblical integrity and weakens the historic Christian faith, replacing it with a kind of "cheap grace." Proponents find it to be a useful tool for the preservation of biblical integrity and a means of harmonizing what would otherwise be contradictory passages of Scripture. They also believe it to be "indispensable" to understanding the greatness of the "Church Age," and all the blessings that have been bestowed upon the Christian believer.

Many theological arguments could be settled, and many apparent "contradictions" resolved, if administrational truth was more widely understood. Defending Dispensationalism will help sincere Christian seekers identify and lay claim to every promise made to them as members of the unique "Body of Christ," and empower them to "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" (Gal. 5:1).
http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... le&sid=564

I agree, of course that Jesus is the head of the Church, But he nor his disciples were Christians before the day of Pentecost.
I also did not mean to say any thing about you not being able to present your thoughts. For someone who has studies dispensationalism for years, God has preserved your youthful appearance.
Bless you.

[Guest]

Every Christian is aware that God no longer requires animal sacrifices...

He never did require them!

Ps 40:6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

He had never required animal sacrifices of appeasement. These the Israelites learned from the other nations who offered appeasing sacrifices to their gods. Yahweh accepted them as a concession, but He didn't want them or require them. He gave "an open ear" to listen to His voice that His people might obey Him.

God didn't say a word about sacrifices when He led them out of Egypt:

Jeremiah 7:22,23 For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

[Guest]

In former days I was a die hard dispensationalist. To me, 1948 was the end of the argument and I remember once reading a preterist website and thinking to myself, "If you people only knew!" Jack Van Impe was a personal hero of mine and I loved his dramatic end times charts and tried to memorize them so I'd know enough to avoid the mark of the beast. I'm not joking here.

It was much later that I heard the preterist view articulated by a man I had a good deal of respect for (not Steve). The basic gist was that Christ fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies and will return someday in the future to judge the rightous and the wicked. I really took to this because I didn't need a flowchart or newspaper clippings to explain it. I then learned that dispensationalism is a relatively new idea which absolutely shocked me. It was the only view I had ever heard. To seal the deal I actually began reading the same bible verses through a dispensational lens followed by a preterist lens. Let me say that the preterist view simply fit the text better and gave more grandeur and importance to what Christ accomplished here on Earth with his life, death and resurrection.

I can see why the dispensational view appeals to people though. It means Christ will return soon and spare them from the trials of this life. It's also the popular view so that's always appealing. But it also means God is overly concerned with land and ethnic races when the bible tells us he is concerned about spiritual things and the state of a man's heart. I'm sorry if my dispensational friends disagree with my assessment but these are the thoughts of someone who moved away from the popular view in search of truth.

[Guest]

JC, what you wrote made no sense to me at all, you must be talking about ultra dispensationalism.
Dispensationalism is a systematic theology that recognizes distinct “economies” in the outworking of God’s purposes on earth. 1 That is, it recognizes that God relates to mankind in different ways at different times. This understanding is in part based upon the Greek word oikonomia, which is often translated “dispensation” in the KJV. Oikonomia means “managing or administering the affairs of a household.”

What is “Dispensationalism”?
Dispensationalism is grounded in the biblical truth that there are only three distinct groups of human beings on earth today—Jew, Gentile and the Church of God, a.k.a “the Body of Christ” or “Christians” (1 Cor. 10:32)—and recognizes God’s various ways of dealing with each.

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... le&sid=272

We believe that ultra-Dispensationalism is not biblically sound, and Dispensationalism as we understand and teach it ought not to be judged by this extreme form of it. Ultra-Dispensationalism eliminates speaking in tongues, as well as any healing or miraculous demonstrations of God’s power, saying that these all ceased when the “Acts Administration” ended.

What is the difference between “Dispensationalism” and “ultra-Dispensationalism”?

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... le&sid=268
Bless you!

[Guest]

What JC described is not ultradispensationalism. As many of us know, who spent many years as dispensationalists, it is ordinary Darbyism (or dispensationalism) that engenders the attitudes he described above.

The idea that God deals separately with three groups: Jews, Gentiles, and Church, is precisely the innovation introduced by dispensationalism, in 1830. Prior to that, it had always been the teaching of Christianity that God only recognizes two categories: believers and unbelievers. This has been true in every age, to some extent, though God did deal, in some respects, separately with the nation of Israel during the period between the exodus and the cross.

These special dealings were laid out as terms of what we usually call "the Sinaitic Covenant," which became defunct when it was replaced by the New Covenant in the upper room (1 Cor.11:25/ Heb.8:13).

[Guest]

It seems that the term "dispensationalism" is not understood in the same way by all people.

My understanding of the term is that it is the theological position that God deals in a different way with each of the three groups: the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church.

Within dispensationalism, there are a number of variations. Some see the Church as beginning in Acts 2, some in Acts 13, and some in Acts 28.
Some consider the teachings of our Lord in Matt 5, 6, and 7 as not applicable to the Church, applicable only to the future Millenium.

Not all dispensationalists believe in a pre-tribulation rapture as did Darby.
I consider Arno C. Gaebelin and C.I. Scofield to have held extreme opinions within dispensationalist thought.

I understand ultradispensationalism to be one extreme form in which all of the gospels are not to be considered as instructions to Christians because they contain teachings "addressed to the Jews". These people also consider that some of Paul's letters, as well as all of the other New Testament letters, to be addressed to the Jews. Indeed, according ultradispensationalists, none of the New Testament, except several of Paul's letters, apply directly to the Church.

I encountered an ultradispensationalist in another forum. He called his method of determining which parts of Biblical instruction Christians should literally put into practice, "rightly dividing the word of truth."

Personally, I am no longer a dispensationalist in any sense. However, in spite of the fact that I began to rethink Millenialism a few months ago, I remain a pre-millenialist. I see the Millenium as the fully developed Kingdom of God.

[Guest]

Personally, I am no longer a dispensationalist in any sense. However, in spite of the fact that I began to rethink Millenialism a few months ago, I remain a pre-millenialist. I see the Millenium as the fully developed Kingdom of God.

So do you believe in the thousand year millenneum after Christ returns?

[Guest]

Is Dispensationalism a theory of men, or is it a truly biblical doctrine?
Dispensationalism is often referred to as a “systematic theology,” but that does not necessarily make it a theory of men as distinct from the truth of God. Christians are called upon to be “workmen” of the Word of God (2 Tim. 2:15), so we cannot expect God to be doing all the work of understanding the Bible for us. There are a variety of ways in which the Bible is not entirely self-interpreting, and must therefore be “correctly handled” or “rightly-divided” according to sound reasoning and the honest application of principles of literary interpretation. The principles are vital to uphold if the Bible is to be understood without contradictions.

If the Bible gives us 2 + 2, we are expected to be able to figure out that the sum is 4, even if it does not specifically say so. If it gives us 2 + ? = 4, we are supposed to figure out that 2 is the missing variable. There is a mathematical exactness to the Word of God that requires us to use our God-given faculties of reason and logic. Sometimes the Bible presents interpretational problems that are essentially algebraic in nature, meaning that we must reason from the known to the unknown to find the solution. [3] Jesus held the disciples accountable for their failing to understand the necessity of his suffering, death and resurrection, even calling them “fools” when they did not draw logical conclusions from the evidence. [4] In other words, they failed to put 2 and 2 together from the scriptural and physical evidence. Actually, they failed to distinguish between his suffering and his glory, and to realize that the only way to harmonize all the evidence was to posit two separate “comings” of Christ to the earth to Israel.

Is Dispensationalism a recently developed doctrine? If so, does that fact eliminate it from serious consideration?

The fact that Dispensationalism as a systematic theology was only fully developed by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) is often cited as evidence to discredit it. This reasoning is based on the premise that if it were true, it would not have been so recently discovered and systematized, but would have been a part of the understanding of the Church since its inception. By that logic, however, we would also have to discredit other doctrines such as the priesthood of the believer and justification by faith, since they did not come to light until the mid-1500’s. The question put properly is: What was taught and practiced by the apostles and the first Century Church and recorded in the Bible?

Our position, which is finding an ever-widening circle of scholarly support, is that many great truths in the New Testament were obscured and lost during the intervening decades between the death of the apostles and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church early in the fourth century. The history of the Christian Church since then has pivoted around many heroic saints who wrested these truths from the jaws of religious tradition, often at the cost of their own lives.

The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is based upon the amillennialist theology of St. Augustine, who held that the Church has adopted the destiny of Israel and is building Christ’s Kingdom on earth through political, economic and worldly influence. [5] As a direct result, the doctrine of Christ’s imminent appearing has been utterly neglected by Roman Catholic tradition.

One of the logical effects of dispensational thinking was the recovery of the idea of Christ’s imminent appearing, something that was clearly believed and practiced in the first-century Church (1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20 and 21; 1 Thess. 1:9 and 10, 4:16 and 17, 5:5-9; Titus 2:13; James 5:8 and 9; Rev. 3:10, 22:17-21). One of the earmarks of non-dispensational thinking is that of placing the Christian Church on a timetable of events that must occur before Christ can gather the Church. This results in believers looking for “signs” of Christ’s appearing, rather than the appearing itself.

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... le&sid=267

[Guest]

One of the logical effects of dispensational thinking was the recovery of the idea of Christ’s imminent appearing, something that was clearly believed and practiced in the first-century Church (1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20 and 21; 1 Thess. 1:9 and 10, 4:16 and 17, 5:5-9; Titus 2:13; James 5:8 and 9; Rev. 3:10, 22:17-21). One of the earmarks of non-dispensational thinking is that of placing the Christian Church on a timetable of events that must occur before Christ can gather the Church. This results in believers looking for “signs” of Christ’s appearing, rather than the appearing itself.

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules ... le&sid=267

Those verses don't speak of an imminent return of Jesus, they do speak of a future return though. But to say imminent is just to add something the text doesn't say. As a matter of fact, if the apostles did predict that Jesus was coming back at any moment, they were wrong. I believe Matthew 25 gives a few examples in its parables stating that it may be a long time before Jesus comes back and to be ready for a long wait.

Also, Paul said:

2 Thes 2:1 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Dispensationalists usually take this passage to mean a future rebuilt temple that the Antichrist sits in during the tribulation. So if that were true, the rapture could not take place until after the "man of sin" is revealed, placing the rapture either in or after the tribulation, not before it.