In the past few chapters, we have examined several passages whose teachings, on the positive side, give strong testimony to the correctness of Reformed theology, and, on the negative side, greatly contradict the basic dispensational assumptions. These Biblical arguments are ones that I became aware of only a few years ago when I was painfully leaving the dispensational system while a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, the Mecca of dispensational thought. Dallas was then the home of well-known dispensational writers such as Drs. Charles C. Ryrie, J. Dwight Pentecost, and John F. Walvoord. Its legacy from the past includes Drs. Lewis Sperry Chafer and Merrill F. Unger. One of its graduates is the well-known Hal Lindsey, the great popularizer of dispensationalism in this generation. So, not only have I been exposed to the arguments for Reformed theology, I have also been exposed to the Biblical arguments for dispensationalism as explained by some of its leading proponents. Now that I have been on both sides of the fence, I have found the theological grass to be much greener on the Reformed side. Yet, I still remember that at one time my thinking was dominated and controlled by the dispensational arguments, and I can sympathetically understand how a sincere Christian can be led astray into the dispensational system. In this chapter we will examine some of the main arguments used by the dispensationalists to defend their theorized dichotomy between Israel and the New Testament church.
As I analyze my former devotion to the dispensational system, I believe that the dispensational argument that held me most powerfully was the one based on the baptism of the Holy Spirit.1 The argument goes like this: it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that puts one into the Body of Christ, which is the church universal (1 Corinthians 12:13); there was no baptism of the Holy Spirit before Acts 2 (Matthew 3:11; Acts 1:5; 11:15-16); therefore, none of God's people who died before Acts 2 can be in the church universal; therefore, there is an absolute dichotomy between Old Testament Israel and the church. This is a subtle argument that can appear, on the surface, to be an iron-clad logical deduction from Scriptural data. The apparent strength of this argument, however, is illusionary. Its forcefulness fades into nothingness when one examines the unstated and hidden assumptions that lie at the core of this argument. We will examine these hidden assumptions in the penetrating light of Scripture.
First, this dispensational argument assumes that at glorification the Old Testament saints will not be made perfect together with the New Testament saints. It assumes that those advances in spiritual benefits that were historically realized at the inauguration of the New Testament era cannot be applied in glorification to those who died before the New Testament era began in fullness at Acts 2. This assumption contradicts the teaching of Scripture. No one's salvation, whether Old Testament saint or New Testament saint, is made perfect or complete during this life. This completion of the application of salvation occurs at glorification at the return of Christ. The Scriptures clearly teach in Hebrews 11:39-40 that the Old Testament saints will be made perfect together with, not apart from, the New Testament saints because God has provided better benefits for saints in this age of spiritual fullness. Both Old Testament saints and New Testament saints will receive the full benefits of the Trinity's salvific work at glorification, and that includes the post-Pentecost baptism of the Spirit for the Old Testament saints. This conclusion is verified by the teaching of Revelation 21 that the Old Testament saints will be included in the Bride of Christ, which is the church universal.
Second, this dispensational argument assumes that the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost was totally different in nature from the Spirit's Old Testament ministry of salvation. The Spirit's new covenant ministry can be both significantly superior to and significantly continuous with His old covenant ministry. Was not the Spirit renewing, sustaining, illuminating and gifting the people of God before Pentecost? Was not this work in both ages based on the person, work and covenant headship of Christ? Before Pentecost, the saving work of the Spirit was based on Messianic promises, and after Pentecost, the saving work of the Spirit was based on historically realized Messianic accomplishments. The Spirit's present ministry is superior to His old covenant ministry because it no longer relates to the Christ to come but to the Christ who has come and been glorified and who now reigns in power (John 7:39). The Spirit's being poured out in unprecedented fullness on and after the Pentecost of Acts 2 does not mean that the Spirit had not been previously putting the people of God into covenant union with the Christ who was then yet to come.
Third, this dispensational argument assumes that salvation was possible in the Old Testament apart from the union with Christ effected by the Spirit. This would mean that Old Testament salvation could not have included those spiritual benefits based upon being put in Christ by the Spirit. This would include even regeneration (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:5,10),2 justification or freedom from divine condemnation (Romans 8:1), sanctification or freedom from sin's dominion (Romans 6:1-4), and a place in the resurrection of the righteous under the covenant headship of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22)! Union with Christ to some degree through the work of the Spirit must have been possible in the Old Testament, or there could have been no Old Testament salvation. Of course, the Old Testament saint did not live in the age of spiritual fullness ushered in by the Son's historic redemptive work, but neither was the Old Testament an age in which all the main effects of the Son's work were absolutely and totally absent! God applied the Son's work to Old Testament believers to some degree even before that work was historically accomplished. There was a relative difference of degree in Old Testament spirituality, not an absolute difference of kind.
I might mention that some dispensational writers consistently accept that their system implies that Old Testament salvation must have been somehow accomplished apart from union with Christ. For example, Dr. Charles C. Ryrie has said that "those who died before Christ's first advent" are not among the "dead in Christ."3 Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer has stated that the Old Testament saints were not "in the new federal Headship of the resurrected Christ," that their lives were not "hid with Christ in God,"4 that "the Old Testament saints were no part of the New Creation in Christ,"5 that other than Christ's needing to be raised from the dead to sit on David's throne, "the nation Israel sustains no relation to the resurrection of Christ,"6 and that "there is no kind of a position in Christ in any teaching of the law or of the kingdom."7
Fourth, this dispensational argument fails to recognize the close relationship between spiritual baptism and spiritual circumcision (Colossians 2:11-12). There definitely was spiritual circumcision in the Old Testament. This was an Old Testament ministry of the Spirit that most probably differed from New Testament spiritual baptism only in degree.
Fifth, the New Testament speaks of salvation in Christ as a participation in the Old Testament covenants of promise (Ephesians 2:12-13). This would indeed be ironic if Old Testament salvation were accomplished apart from union with Christ.
There is another dispensational argument similar to the above. This argument is based upon the New Testament's reference to the church age as a mystery.8 In Scripture, a mystery is a previously unknown secret that God has newly revealed. Dispensationalists argue that the church age was a mystery in Old Testament times in an absolute sense. Since the church age was absolutely unknown in the Old Testament, then no Old Testament prophecy could refer to the church age. This means that all Old Testament prophecies about a coming age had to refer to the dispensational Jewish millennium, not to the church age. Then the church age is truly an unforeseen parenthesis in God's program for Israel. The Reformed answer to this argument is that the church was a mystery in a relative sense. This answer is based on Ephesians 3:3-6: ". . . the mystery . . ., which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto (God's) holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." The as here is comparative indicating that the church age was relatively unknown in the Old Testament, not absolutely unknown. Certain characteristics of the church age that are referred to here as a mystery (Ephesians 3:6) are elsewhere shown to be predicted in Old Testament prophecy (Romans 15:7-13), which proves the mystery to be relative, not absolute.
Another dispensational argument is based on Christ's statement, "I will build My church" (Matthew 16:18). The dispensationalists argue that if the church were then something just being built, then it could not have existed in Old Testament times. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer has argued this as follows:
When the stress falls on the word will, the prophetic aspect is introduced and the reader is reminded that the Church did not exist at the moment Christ was speaking, but was to be realized in the future. This is a difficult aspect of truth for those who contend that the Church has existed throughout the period covered by the Old Testament, or any part of it.9The answer to this argument is simple. The New Testament church at the time of Christ's earthly ministry was both old and new. It was old in that the concept of God's having a church or a called out people was rooted in the Old Testament. The New Testament church is new in that God's people reached a new dispensational maturity at that time because of the historical work of the Son. The Old Testament church was in the infancy of ceremonial shadows and a nationally confined kingdom; the New Testament church was in the maturity of spiritual realities and a universalized kingdom. In the Old Testament, Moses served the church as a servant; in the New Testament, Christ was faithful over the church as a Son (Hebrews 3:5-8). The newness in Matthew 16 is not an absolute newness as if God had not before had a church or called out people. The newness is the newness of God's people belonging to the Christ in a new and intimate way. Christ was referring to the mature church of Messianic realities as opposed to the immature church of Messianic prefigurations. Christ was saying that He would build His new covenant church not from scratch but out of the material of the old covenant church, replacing the typological shadows with spiritual substance, excluding the Jews who would not accept Him, and expanding the Jewish tent to include the Gentiles (Isaiah 54:1-3).
On the side, when the Greek word translated church is applied to Old Testament Israel in Scripture (Acts 7:38), dispensationalists say that the word is being used in a nontheological sense, as it is used in Acts 19:32 to refer to an assembly.10 Whenever the word Israel is used to refer to the New Testament church (Galatians 6:16), dispensationalists say that it refers strictly to the physical Jews in the church.
A similar argument to this one based on Matthew 16:18 is one based on Ephesians 2:20, where the apostles and prophets are said to be the foundation of the church. If the church is described as a temple founded on the New Testament apostles and on Christ, argues the dispensationalist, then it cannot have an Old Testament foundation. I have heard that some Reformed interpreters try to answer this argument by pointing out that Ephesians 2:20 also teaches that the church is founded on Old Testament prophets as well as New Testament apostles, but I consider that to be an inadequate argument. The prophets in Ephesians 2:20 are New Testament prophets (compare Ephesians 3:5, especially the word now; Ephesians 4:11). One should acknowledge that Ephesians 2:20 is referring to the church in its New Testament manifestation, to the church in its Messianic maturity, and not to the church in its broader sense. The passage that discusses the church in its broader sense with the use of an architectural figure is Revelation 21:9-14. The word church as used in the New Testament can refer broadly to the elect of all ages or it can refer narrowly to the assembly of Old Testament Israel, to the covenant community in its New Testament manifestations, or to a local New Testament congregation. In Ephesians 2:20, the word church is not even used directly. The reference is to the "new man" (Ephesians 2:15), which refers to the church in its New Testament form. If one examines the church as the community with God's promise of salvation, its foundation goes ultimately back to the Trinitarian covenant of redemption in eternity past and goes historically back to the promise of the Seed Redeemer given to Adam and Eve after the fall. If one examines the church as a covenant community with a system of sacramental administration, its foundation goes back to the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. If one examines the church as the covenant community of Messianic fullness, then its foundation is the historical work of Christ and the New Testament apostles and prophets. Ephesians 2:20 is admittedly a discussion of the church strictly in its New Testament form, but Ephesians 2:12-19 also stresses the strong continuity of the New Testament church with Old Testament Israel and with the Old Testament covenants. The Reformed theologian acknowledges both the newness of the New Testament church and its continuity with the Old Testament covenant community. The dispensationalist radicalizes the former and denies the latter. Also, the Reformed theologian recognizes that the word church at times refers to the elect of all the ages (Ephesians 5:25) and to the assembly of Old Testament Israel (Acts 7:38), usages which dispensationalists have to deny.
I will deal with one last argument that the dispensationalists use. They argue that since the New Testament continues to distinguish between physical Israelites, physical Gentiles and the Christian church (1 Corinthians 10:32), then one cannot identify Israel and the church. After all, Israel and the church are kept separate in Scripture.11 This argument is based upon an overly restricted understanding of the term Israel.
Though the physical Jew may have a sense of racial identity, membership in Israel has never been a strictly racial matter but instead primarily a matter of covenant relationship. Israel was the name of the Old Testament covenant community that was distinguished from the nations by the covenant of circumcision. Physical descent and blood lines were emphasized because the Messiah was to be a literal descendant of both Abraham and David, but Gentiles could join Israel through the proselyte laws. In the genealogy of David, we find Tamar the Canaanite, Rahab the harlot from Jericho, and Ruth the Moabitess. All of Abraham's servants were circumcised into Israel in Genesis 17. When Abraham delivered Lot, his household servants included 318 men trained for warfare (Genesis 14:14). The total number of servants and their families was undoubtedly a large number, and all the males were circumcised. When Jacob when to Egypt, his physical descendants numbered seventy, but his household was so large that they were given the entire land of Goshen in which to live. A mixed multitude came out of Egypt with the physical descendents of Abraham (Exodus 12:38). Many of the mighty men of David's army were of foreign extraction (1 Chronicles 11:26-47), the best known being Uriah the Hittite. Gentiles throughout the ancient world became Jews in the days of Queen Esther (Esther 8:17). During the intertestamental Maccabean era, many Edomites, descendants of Esau, became Jews.12 In the eighth century A.D. long after the great divorce between Christianity and Judaism, the Gentile Khazars of eastern Europe converted to Judaism. And thousands of professed Christians are converting to Judaism each year in our own day. To be a Jew is to be covenanted into the Jewish people by circumcision just as to be a Christian is to be covenanted into the Christian people by baptism.
Also, members of Israel under the old covenant could be excommunicated from the covenant community for certain high handed sins. One could be a member of Israel by racial descent without being a member of Israel as a citizen or church member. Also, when much of Israel lapsed into idolatry, the prophets spoke of the remnant within the nation who were Jews inwardly as well as outwardly. This concept of being a true inward Jew was stressed by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:9), Jesus (John 8:37,39), and Paul (Romans 2:28-29; 9:6). One could be a member of Israel physically, nationally, culturally, and religiously without being a member of Israel spiritually.
In this age of the new covenant, the physical Jew must follow the example of Zacchaeus and believe in Christ to be a true son of Abraham (Luke 19:9). In this age, to covenant into ethnic Israel by circumcision is to covenant into a people who reject Jesus of Nazareth. In this age, many Gentiles have followed the example of the Roman centurion of great faith and have come from east and west to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:11). In the New Testament, one can be a physical Jew and not be a spiritual Jew (Revelation 2:9; 3:9), and one could be a physical Gentile and be a spiritual seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:29; Romans 4:11). All Christians are inward Jews, and Paul teaches that "he is a Jew, which is one inwardly" (Romans 2:28).
Although both Christianity and Judaism have roots in the Old Testament religion, only Christianity is the seed according to promise like Isaac (Galatians 4:21-31) and the true heir of the Old Testament covenants. Paul compares unbelieving ethic Israel to Ishmael, the one who was a physical descendant of Abraham but who was cast out of the covenant community. As long as ethnic Israel remains in spiritual hardness and blindness through her rejection of God's Messiah, she remains cut off from spiritual Israel and from the sap of God's saving grace (Romans 11:23; compare Matthew 8:12) and is an enemy of God concerning the gospel (Romans 11:28). For a season in the days of transition between the old and new covenants, the status of the unbelieving Jews as members of the covenant community with a special interest in God's promises was honored (Acts 2:39; 3:25), but those who hardened in their rejection were eventually pruned off the tree of the true Israel (Romans 11:20).
The use of the word Israel in reference to physical Jews or to ethnic Israel or to the religious heirs of the Pharisees does not imply that the church is not spiritual Israel, the true Israel of God (Galatians 6:16) and the true heir of the Old Testament covenants.
But, asks the dispensationalist, what about Romans 11:29: "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance"? All this verse is teaching is that there is a sense in which ethnic Israel remains beloved of God because of the special role of her fathers in redemptive history and because of her national election under the old covenant (Romans 9:1-5). This is not to say that ethnic Israel has its own prophetic future apart from the Christian church. This is to say that because of God's respect for ethnic Israel's former participation in the covenant promises, ethnic Israel's apostasy from spiritual Israel will never be full or final. Many Jews have been cut off from the olive tree of spiritual Israel, but there will always be an elect remnant within ethnic Israel who are Jews inwardly as well as outwardly and members of the true Israel of God, which is the Christian church (Romans 11:1-7). And ethnic Israel will one day experience a spiritual fullness that will be in direct contrast to the hardness, blindness and stumbling of her national rejection of Jesus (Romans 11:12,15,26-29). God continues to have a place for ethnic Israel in His prophetic plans in spite of her national stumbling but that future is not divorced from the Christian church. And that future will be realized in and through the Christian church when the cast off natural branches are grafted back into the olive tree through faith in Christ (Romans 11:23). At that point, all Israel will be saved and will experience the blessings of the new covenant (Romans 11:26-27).13
In summary, we see that dispensationalism overstresses the differences of kind between the Old and New Testaments to the point of neglecting their organic relationship of developmental continuity. Old Testament Israel was the church in infancy; Acts 2 was the church's Bar Mitzvah; the New Testament church is Israel come to maturity. The New Testament church is organically related to Old Testament Israel like a man's adulthood is organically related to that same man's childhood (Galatians 4:1-7). In such a relationship, there is both newness and continuity.
End Notes
1 Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody Press, 1965), pages 136-137. 2 Jesus' discourse with Nicodemus in John 3 is a classic passage on regeneration. Since that passage was spoken under the old covenant dispensation, dispensationalists tend to acknowledge that there was regeneration under the old covenant economy. Dr. John F. Walvoord says, on the same page, both that people could be born again under the old covenant and that Old Testament saints were not in Christ. The difficulty with this teaching is that the New Testament associates regeneration with union with Christ.
John F. Walvoord, The Holy Spirit at Work Today (Chicago: Moody Press, 1973), page 21; compare J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958), page 271; contrast with Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), 4:16.3 Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, page 136; compare John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), page 280.
Darby, William Kelly, A.C. Gaebelein, C.I. Scofield and others have held that the "dead in Christ" of 1 Thessalonians 4:16 includes the Old Testament saints. The most obvious difficulty with this position is the difficulty in putting the Old Testament saints "in Christ" as Paul used that term and keeping them out of the Body of Christ. Many dispensationalists today limit the "dead in Christ" to church saints, and William Everett Bell, Jr. explains the history of this doctrinal evolution:In 1937, in his The Approaching Advent of Christ, Alexander Reese launched a vitriolic attack on Pretribulationism. The major thrust of his argument lay in the identification of the resurrection of the righteous dead with the time of Christ's second coming. He then demonstrated conclusively from scripture that the resurrection of Old Testament saints was to follow the tribulation period; therefore the second coming of Christ must follow the tribulation period also. The force of his argument was felt keenly by pretribulationalists, but an ingenious solution was devised to get around the problem. Pretribulationists simply conceded Reese's point that the Old Testament saints would be resurrected after the tribulation, but they maintained that the New Testament church saints would still be resurrected at the rapture before the tribulation." William Everett Bell, Jr., "A Critical Evaluation of the Pre-tribulation Rapture Doctrine in Christian Eschatology" (dissertation, School of Education of New York University, 1967), pages 15-16.4 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 4:181. 5 Ibid., 4:63. 6 Ibid., 1:xvi-xvii. 7 Ibid., 4:98. 8 John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom, pages 232-237; Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, page 134, footnote 4. On page 201 of Dispensationalism Today, Dr. Ryrie quotes a dispensational writer who comments as follows on Ephesians 3:5: "The 'as it has now been revealed' may indeed suggest that this mystery had been hinted at in the Old Testament, but under veiled forms or types, and only now was properly revealed." On page 134, footnote 4, Dr. Ryrie gives the normal dispensational interpretation on this point when he denies that : ". . . the 'as' clause of Ephesians 3:5 might imply a partial revelation in the Old Testament . . ." Elsewhere, Dr. Ryrie says, "The Church is a mystery in the sense that it was completely unrevealed in the Old Testament and now revealed in the New Testament." Charles Caldwell Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (Neptune, N.J.: Loizeaux Brothers, 1953), page 136. 9 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), 4:43. 10 Charles Caldwell Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith, page 137; C.I. Scofield, editor, The Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1909), page 1021 (note on Matthew 16:18). 11 John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom, page 164; J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come, page 88; Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, page 138. 12 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XIII,ix,1. 13 For a defense of this view of "all Israel shall be saved," see Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope: A Study in Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Carlisle, Penn.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), pages 72-74; John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), 2:91-103. For a defense of the view that "all Israel" refers to the believing remnant within ethnic Israel throughout the ages, see William Hendriksen, Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1968), pages 35-52.