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Two Evangelical Systems of Biblical Theology · Reformed Thinking

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So imagine you hand 2 brilliant architects the precise same set
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of blueprints. They both sit down at the
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drafting tables. They look at the same lines, the
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same measurements, the same list of materials.
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Exact same starting point. Precisely.
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But when they go out into the field to actually build the
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structure, they interpret the structural load bearing walls
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differently. They disagree on which pillars
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hold the whole thing up. Oh, I see where you're going
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with this. Yeah, so the result is that they
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construct 2 wildly different houses from the very same
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schematic. Welcome to Reformed Thinking, a
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special deep dive where we take your sources and pull out the
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most fascinating insights. It is going to be a great
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discussion today. It really is.
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Today, we're looking at how evangelical scholars attempt to
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synthesize the entire Bible into one coherent system.
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Which is a massive undertaking if you think about.
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It it really is So if you are listening right now, our mission
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today is to decode the grand narrative of Scripture.
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Drawing from excerpts by Larry Arhelier, we are looking at two
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major covenant theology and dispensationalism.
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Two very distinct houses, to use your analogy.
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Right. And that architect analogy is
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pretty much what has happened over the last 400 years of
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biblical scholarship. We have these two massive,
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towering frameworks that shape how millions of people read
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their Bibles today. And you know, they both claim to
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be using the same blueprints. That blueprint analogy captures
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the tension so well. Thanks, I think it helps frame
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the whole conversation. It does.
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What is so fascinating here is that both of these theological
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systems start from the absolute same baseline.
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Both covenant theology and dispensationalism share a total
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strict belief in the inspiration and the authority of the Bible.
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So there is no debate between them on whether the text is
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valid. None at all.
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They are looking at the same source text, the same historical
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events and antiquity, and the same prophetic promises
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regarding the future. They agree that the Bible is a
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single, unified revelation from God.
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But they part ways completely on the mechanics of how that
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revelation unfolds across history, right?
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Spot on. It is a massive disagreement
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over the organizational structure.
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Do we organize the history of redemption around a series of
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overarching binding agreements between God and humanity?
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Which would be covenant theology.
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Yes. Or do we organize it around
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distinct successive periods of administration where God tests
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humanity under different rules? That single divergent in the
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blueprint leads to two highly sophisticated, heavily detailed
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frameworks. So let's look at the first house
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our architects built. Let's talk about covenant
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theology. Sounds good, where should we
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start? Well, my understanding is this
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did not just pop up in the early days of the ancient church.
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When did this specific structural framework actually
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begin to take shape? The historical backdrop for
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covenant theology is situated squarely in the post Reformation
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era. Now obviously early reformers
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like John Calvin talked about covenants.
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Right. You hear Calvin's name a lot in
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this space. You do.
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Calvin viewed God's relationship with humanity as a gracious
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arrangement. But Calvin actually structured
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his theology around the concept of the Trinity, not the covenant
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itself. Oh interesting, so the covenant
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was not the main pillar for him? No, the covenant was a feature
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of his house, not the base. It was later thinkers,
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specifically Swiss and German theologians in the 16th and 17th
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centuries, who formalized this into a comprehensive system.
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Who are some of the key players there?
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We're looking at figures like Heinrich Bollinger in Zurich.
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He started to view the entire biblical text as one long,
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unfolding story of God's covenant relationship with
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humanity. OK, so Bollinger gets the ball
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rolling. Yes.
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And then you have Zacharias Cersnas and Casper Olivianus.
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They were the brilliant minds who drafted the Heidelberg
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Catechism. And for anyone who might not
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know, a catechism is basically a teaching tool, right?
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Like a question and answer format.
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Yes, it is a summary of principles.
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When they drafted it, they really pushed this federal idea
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forward, postulating that God has always interacted with
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humanity through these formal binding agreements.
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I want to pause right there because the historical context
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behind this is fascinating to me.
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Hellyer's text points out that this entire theological system
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did not just drop out of the sky in a vacuum, no.
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It was heavily influenced by the socio political climate of
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Europe at the time. Right Society was going through
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this massive upheaval, shifting away from absolute monarchs and
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medieval feudalism and moving toward constitutional monarchies
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and social contracts. It was a huge paradigm shift for
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the average person. Think about what it felt like to
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live under a true absolute monarch.
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The king made arbitrary laws dink on his mood.
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You had no rights, you just obeyed or faced the
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consequences. And then the political
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innovations of the era introduced the idea of social
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contract. Exactly.
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I mean, yes, a mutual agreement where both the ruler and the
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subjects have binding obligations to each other.
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The idea of God binding himself to a mutual agreement perfectly
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mirrored those political innovations.
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It is so interesting how that happens.
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People were moving away from viewing God as an arbitrary
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monarch who just handed down decrees from the clouds.
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They were moving toward a God who condescends to enter into a
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negotiated contractual relationship with humanity.
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If you connect this to the broader landscape of how human
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beings understand authority, you can see how radical that shift
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was. It changes everything about how
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you read the text. It really does.
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In the era of the divine right of kings, an absolute monarch is
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accountable to no one. But in what became known as
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federal theology, God voluntarily limits himself, in a
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sense, to enter an agreement with sinners.
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Wow, that is a very different picture of God.
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He prescribes moral duties not through arbitrary Caprice, but
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through a relationship that requires willing consent and
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mutual obligation. This brings us to Johannes
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Cochius in the 17th century. Cochius OK, What was his role?
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He is often called the father of federal theology.
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Cochius felt that some of the earlier, stricter views on
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predestination were too rigid. They made God seem distant,
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cold, or even responsible for the fall of humanity.
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So he wanted to soften that perspective.
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Yes. To soften this, Coach Chase
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utilized the covenant framework to focus on something called
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Federal Headship. Federal headship, That is one of
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those academic terms that sounds intimidating.
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How do we break that down for someone who has never heard it
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before? Think of federal headship like a
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political ambassador or a union representative.
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OK, I like that. When an ambassador goes to a
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foreign country and signs a treaty, every single citizen in
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their home country is bound by the terms of that treaty, even
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though they were not personally in the room to sign it.
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Because their representative acted on their behalf.
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Right. Causius applied this to the
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biblical narrative. He contrasted Adam, who acted as
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the federal head of the first covenant, with Jesus Christ, who
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acts as the federal head of the new covenant.
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So instead of just abstract decrees, it makes it about
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historical representatives. Yes, by mapping out salvation
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history through these successive periods of representation,
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cocaine has shifted the focus away from abstract eternal
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decrees made before time began. He grounded theology and the
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historical reality of God interacting with real human
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beings over time. Wait, I'm stuck on something
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here. If God is completely sovereign,
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omnipotent, and holds all the cards in the universe, why on
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earth is he signing a contract with humans?
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That is a very common objection. He has omniscience.
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He has to know they are going to default on the agreement.
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What is the upside for the Creator in this arrangement?
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It seems like a massive risk, or at least a voluntary limitation
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of his own sovereignty. That is a brilliant question,
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and it strikes right at the heart of how covenant
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theologians view the nature of grace.
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So what is the upside for God? For the covenant theologian, the
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upside is the manifestation of God's glory through his
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voluntary condescension and steadfast love.
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He certainly does not need the contract.
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Because he is entirely self-sufficient.
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Right. Yes, within the Trinity.
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But he chooses this framework to create a structured relationship
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that highlights his mercy. To explain how this mechanism
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actually works, classical covenant theology builds its
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house on three distinct covenants.
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OK, let's walk through those 3 pillars.
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What is the first one? The first is the Covenant of
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Redemption. This one is unique because it
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does not actually involve humans signing anything.
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Wait, a covenant without humans? Right.
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It is a pre temporal agreement made in eternity past between
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God the Father and God the Son. The Son agrees to step into
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human history perfectly, obey the law, and suffer the penalty
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of death for humanity's rebellion.
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And what does the father promise in return?
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In return, the Father promises the salvation of a specific
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people. It pushes the covenant pattern
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back into the inner life of the Trinity itself, making the
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salvation plan an eternal, unbreakable pact.
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So the core is laid down before the universe even exists.
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That makes the whole system incredibly stable from their
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perspective. Exactly.
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I mean that is spot on. But then we get to the humans.
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Right where things get messy. What is the second pillar?
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The second pillar is the covenant of works, which is
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sometimes called the covenant of life.
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This was the agreement made between God and Adam in the
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Garden of Eden. And what were the terms of that
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contract? The condition was Adam's perfect
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obedience. If you obeyed the parameters set
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by God, eternal life was the promise reward.
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The penalty for failure was death.
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And because Adam was the federal head, our ambassador, his
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failure breached the contract and sealed the fate of all his
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posterity. Yes, when he fell, the whole
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human race fell with him. That breach necessitated the
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third and final pillar, the Covenant of Grace.
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So this is God stepping in to fix the breach.
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Yes, after the fall in Eden, God instituted a new agreement
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between himself and believers. The requirement here is no
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longer perfect, flawless human works, because humanity is now
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incapable of that. So what is the requirement now?
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The requirement is faith in Jesus Christ who fulfilled the
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original terms of obedience. The promise is eternal life.
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That makes sense. In this system, every single
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subsequent agreement you read about in the Old Testament,
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whether it's with Noah, Abraham, Moses, or David, is viewed as
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just an elaboration or a new phase of this one singular
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covenant of grace. OK, so if the system is based on
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these overarching grace covenants, how do they actually
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read the Bible to get there? Do they read it literally or is
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there some decoding going on behind the scenes?
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The hermeneutics, the rules of interpretation, are really
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central here. Hillier points out that covenant
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theology starts with a literal, grammatical, historical
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interpretation method, much like anyone else.
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Right, They're not just making up allegories out of nowhere.
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No, but it shifts to a spiritual application when it comes to the
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relationship between the ancient nation of Israel and the New
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Testament church. How so?
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Covenant theology looks at the New Testament church and
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identifies it as the new Israel. The true faithful remnant of the
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ancient old custom and era is equated directly with the Church
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today. Meaning they do not see two
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distinct groups in God's plan. Right.
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They see one unified, continuous people of God stretching from
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the Garden of Eden right through the New Testament.
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And they have specific scriptural proof they point to
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for this, right? It is not just a theory they
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spun out of thin. Air.
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Oh, absolutely. They rely heavily on the New
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Testament authors for this. Look at first Peter 2.9 to 10.
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Peter is writing a letter to a bunch of scattered, largely
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Gentile churches in the 1st century, and he calls them a
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chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
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Yes, that is a prime example. Now to a 1st century Jewish
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reader, taking those specific titles which were given
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explicitly to ancient Israel at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 and
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applying them to a bunch of non Jewish Greeks and Romans in the
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church would be completely shocking.
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It would have been a massive paradigm shift for them.
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For a covenant theologian, Peter doing this proves that the
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church has fully inherited the promises, the titles, and the
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core or identity of historic Israel.
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That is their reading, yes. And because of this unified view
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of Israel and the Church, covenant theology naturally
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gravitates towards specific views of the end times or
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eschatology. Because if the church is Israel,
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that changes how you read prophecy it.
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Changes everything. Since the magnificent promises
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made to Israel in the Old Testament are seen as being
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fulfilled spiritually in the church right now, there is no
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pressing need to look for a future literal geopolitical
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fulfillment. They're not waiting for a
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restored nation of Israel in the Middle East to fulfill those
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texts. Right.
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This theological stance leads to three distinct end times views
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within this camp. The overwhelming majority view
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is called amillennialism. Amillennialism.
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Break that down for us. In this view, the thousand year
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reign of Christ mentioned in Revelation 20 is not a future
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literal political Kingdom with borders and a capital city on
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earth. So what is the 1000 years?
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The 1000 years is a symbolic number representing the present
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Gospel era we are living in right now.
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Good and evil will develop on parallel tracks throughout this
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age, growing side by side until a final, singular return of
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Christ for a general judgment. I love visualizing things to
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make them stick. Let's look at amillennialism,
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like tracking a volatile stock. Market a stock market, OK, I
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like where this is going. You have massive highs.
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You have devastating crashes. Good and evil are trading blows
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on the trading floor. The Bears and the Bulls are
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fighting constantly. That is a very vivid.
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Picture you have revivals and you have wars, and that high
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stakes volatility continues right up until the closing bell
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rings at the end of history. That is a great way to picture
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it. The second view within Covenant
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theology is post millennialism. And how does that differ from
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the volatile market? This is a highly optimistic
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view, famously held by massive historical figures like Jonathan
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Edwards. Post millennialism posits that
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the preaching of the Gospel will eventually be so successful that
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it will Christianize the vast majority of the globe.
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So the whole world just gets better and better, yes.
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It envisions a slow, gradual transformation of society,
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bringing about a massive period of righteousness, justice and
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peace, a literal golden age on earth before Christ returns at
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the very end of it. So sticking with our market
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analogy, post millennialism predicts a slow, massive,
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unstoppable bull market. Right, the trend line is always
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going. Up.
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Sure, there might be little dips here and there, recession or a
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bad century, but the overarching trend line goes up and up.
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The world gets better, society improves through the gospel,
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leading to a glorious, prosperous closing bell.
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That is a perfect analogy. And then there's the third, a
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much rarer view called covenantal premillennialism.
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A rare few, you say? Very rare in this camp, this
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minority view maintains the unified concept of Israel and
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the church, meaning they believe Jewish believers are fully
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integrated into the church without distinction.
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But they changed the ending. Yes, they depart from the other
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two views by still expecting a literal future thousand year
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reign of Christ on a physical earth after he returns.
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They hold the Covenant framework, but keep a literal
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reading of the Revelation 20 timeline.
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But no theological system remains completely static,
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right? They adapt.
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They have to. History forces them to.
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When scholars find new historical data, or when
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cultural pressures rise, the architects have to go back in
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and remodel parts of the house. Halier talks about the internal
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debates and the evolution of Covenant theology over the last
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few decades. That is very true.
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Human theological systems undergo constant refinement and
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stress testing. Where did they feel the most
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stress recently? One major area of reassessment
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in recent decades involves the covenant of works.
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Modern scholars like Thomas Mccomiskey and Palmer Robertson
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challenge the rigid terminology of works versus grace that the
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earlier theologians relied on. Oh really?
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Why did they like the term works?
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Mccomiskey prefers the term covenant of creation for the
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arrangement in Eden. He argues that the original
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setup with Adam did not actually offer eternal life as a wage to
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be earned for obedience. So it wasn't a paycheck
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scenario. Right.
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Rather, it threatened death for disobedience.
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His point is that even the pre fall arrangement in the pristine
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garden was built on God's grace. It was not a strict system of
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meritorious works where Adam could clock in, do his job, and
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force God to hand over eternal life.
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Yes, Robertson agrees with that. He points out that to call it a
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covenant of works implies there was 0 grace in the garden.
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Which feels wrong if God is naturally gracious.
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It contradicts the core biblical idea that all of God's dealings
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with humanity involve his gracious provision.
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This modern shift tries to eliminate the idea that human
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beings, even innocent ones, could ever relate to God purely
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on the basis of earning their keep.
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That reassessment actually triggered a massive controversy,
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though. Tweaking one load bearing wall
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in the architect's blueprint can threaten the stability of the
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whole structure. It caused quite a stir in
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academic circles. Hillier brings up the
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acrimonious debate involving A theologian named Norman Shepard
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at Westminster Theological Seminary.
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Oh yes, the Shepherd controversy.
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Shepherd took this idea that God never relates to humanity
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strictly on a works basis, and he pushed it to its logical
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limit. He took it further than most.
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We're comfortable. With he started teaching that
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justification how a person is declared righteous before God
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actually involves non meritorious good deeds.
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He called it the obedience of faith.
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And you can imagine the reaction to that terminology.
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That sparked an absolute firestorm.
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Critics accused him of undermining the core Protestant
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Reformation principle of justification by faith alone.
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To his critics, bringing works into the equation of
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justification, even if you put the word non meritorious in
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front of it, sounded very problematic.
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It sounded dangerously close to the Roman Catholic view that the
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Reformers had protested against centuries earlier.
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It just shows how high the stakes are when you adjust the
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definitions of a system. It does.
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It shows how tightly woven all these concepts are.
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Which leads me to a huge question, maybe the biggest
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puzzle for this whole framework, the Mosaic Law dilemma.
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Ah yes, the Mount Sinai problem. Right.
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If everything post fall is governed by this overarching
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covenant of grace, what do we do with Moses?
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It is a massive interpretive hurdle.
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You read the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy and it
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is rule after rule, strict compliance, dietary laws, fabric
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laws, agricultural laws. It sounds very much like a
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covenant of works. God literally says do these
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things and you will live. Disobey and you will be cursed.
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How does covenant theology fit the incredibly strict condition
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heavy rules of Moses into a system supposedly governed
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entirely by unmerited grace? That is perhaps one of the most
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persistent, difficult hurdles for the system to clear.
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How do you harmonize the grace of the cross with the Thunder
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and lightning of Sinai? Yeah, how do they solve?
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That to solve it, scholars like Meredith Klein proposed that the
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mosaic setup had a dual aspect it was operating on two
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different frequencies simultaneously 2.
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Frequencies. OK, let's look at the first one.
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Klein argued that regarding an individual Israelites personal
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eternal salvation, the system functioned entirely as an
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administration of the covenant of grace.
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So a regular person in ancient Israel was saved by grace.
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Yes, an ancient Israelite was saved by faith in the promises
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of God and the coming Messiah, which was demonstrated outwardly
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through their participation in the sacrificial animal system.
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They knew. The blood of a goat could not
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clear their conscience. Right, it was pointing to a
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greater grace. So on the individual spiritual
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level, it is all grace. But what is the second
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frequency? The second frequency had to do
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with a nation as a political entity regarding the nation of
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Israel keeping their physical territory, their tenure in the
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land of Canaan. The system functioned as a
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covenant of works. So it was performance based for
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the nation. Yes, if the nation obeyed the
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laws, kept the Sabbaths and avoided idolatry, they stayed in
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the land and experienced economic and agricultural
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prosperity. And if they failed the
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performance review? If they disobeyed, the contract
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was breached and they were physically exiled by foreign
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empires like Babylon. So this dual aspect solution
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allows covenant theology to maintain maintain its
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overarching framework of grace for eternal salvation while
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making total sense of the strict conditional workspace language
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found in the books of Moses. Yes, it manages to keep both
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realities intact. It is like the difference
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between being a citizen of a country by birthright versus
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keeping your specific job by meeting performance metrics.
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That is a very practical way to understand.
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It That is a brilliant workaround, but you can see how
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Covenant theology's tendency to spiritualize ancient prophecy or
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create dual aspect workarounds left some readers unsatisfied.
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Some people wanted things to be much more literal.
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Right. Some people wanted a more
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straightforward, highly systematic approach to the text,
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especially regarding the future, and because of that desire, a
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completely new framework took the English speaking world by
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storm. This is where we shift to the
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second major system. Yes, this is where we look at
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the second architect, Classical dispensationalism.
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So where did the 2nd house come from?
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Did someone just wake up one day in the 1800s and sketch a brand
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new blueprint? Not quite, though it certainly
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gained massive, unprecedented traction in the 19th century
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thanks to a few specific figures.
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Who started the movement? Hailier introduces us to John
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Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren.
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Darby was a fascinating guy. What was his background?
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He was an Irish barrister, a highly educated lawyer who
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became an ordained Anglican priest, but he grew incredibly
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disillusioned with the established state Church of his
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day. What?
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Was his issue with the church? He viewed it as overly worldly,
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bureaucratic and apostate. He wanted to strip away all the
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centuries of ecclesiastical tradition, the heavy academic
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theology, and just read the text as plainly as possible.
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So he went back to the raw blueprints.
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Yes, he began categorizing biblical history into distinct
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eras based on a literal reading. And while Darby might have
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sketched the blueprints, it was an American who built the
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neighborhood. The system was absolutely
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supercharged in North America by a man named CI Schofield.
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Had an unbelievable impact on American Christianity.
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He published his famous Scofield reference Bible in 19 O 9.
22:21
For the listener who might not know why that matters, Scofield
22:25
did something revolutionary. He put the commentary right on
22:28
the page. Yes, he printed his
22:30
dispensational commentary notes right on the same page as the
22:33
biblical text. Prior to this you had the Bible
22:36
and then you had separate commentary books.
22:38
Right, you had to flip back and forth between different books.
22:41
Scofield put his interpretations right there in the margins and
22:44
at the bottom of the page. It sold over 10 million copies.
22:48
That is an astonishing number for that era.
22:51
Millions of regular people sitting in pews couldn't tell
22:53
where the inspired words of the Bible ended and Schofield's
22:57
opinions began. His framework just became what
22:59
the Bible said to a massive chunk of American evangelicals.
23:03
The cultural impact of that study Bible cannot be
23:05
overstated. Following Schofield, you have
23:08
Lewis Berry Schaefer, who founded Dallas Theological
23:11
Seminary in 1924. And he gave it academic
23:13
credibility, right? Yes, Schaefer wrote a staggering
23:17
8 volume Systematic Theology that cemented the academic
23:20
intellectual foundation of the movement.
23:23
He made dispensationalism A rigorous academic discipline,
23:27
not just a grassroots movement. Now, critics often claim this
23:30
was purely a 19th century invention, a totally novel idea.
23:34
That is a frequent criticism, yes.
23:36
But Hellier notes that a scholar named Arnold Ellert actually
23:40
attempted to trace the roots of this compartmentalized system
23:43
back to ancient Jewish cabalists.
23:45
Ellert. Found some interesting
23:46
historical parallels there. Ellert pointed out that these
23:49
ancient mystical thinkers equated the Hebrew letter Ella
23:52
to the number 1000. They use that linguistic quirk
23:56
to predict A6000 year span of human history.
23:59
Followed by a millennial rest period.
24:00
Exactly yes, Followed by a millennial Sabbath of 1000 years
24:03
of peace. Ellard also finds traces of
24:05
dividing history into distinct eras among early Church fathers
24:09
like Eurynaeus. But even with those ancient
24:11
echoes, most historians and scholars were readily
24:14
acknowledged that John Nelson Darby is the true systematizer
24:18
of modern dispensationalism. He is the one who drew the hard
24:21
lines. And the absolute core of those
24:24
hard lines, the load bearing wall of this particular house,
24:28
is a sharp, impenetrable boundary between Israel and the
24:31
Church. Yes, that separation is non
24:34
negotiable for them. According to classical thinkers
24:36
like Schofield and Shaffer, God has two distinct separate
24:40
programs for two distinct separate peoples.
24:43
Israel is viewed as an earthly people with an earthly destiny.
24:48
Which means literal physical promises.
24:51
Right. God gave them specific,
24:52
irrevocable promises regarding a physical land in the Middle
24:56
East, a literal throne of David in Jerusalem, and a geopolitical
24:59
Kingdom. And the church is entirely
25:01
different. Yes.
25:02
The Church, conversely, is viewed as heavenly people with a
25:05
heavenly destiny. The church was formed only after
25:08
the Jewish nation rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
25:11
Let's clarify Scofield's specific rule on literal
25:13
interpretation, because it is the engine driving this whole
25:16
machine. Critics sometimes mock it as
25:18
wooden literalism, as if sensationalists believe a
25:21
biblical cornerstone means Jesus is made of actual granite.
25:25
That is a total mischaracterization that is not
25:27
fair to Scofield. He fully acknowledged that
25:29
figures of speech, poetry and metaphors exist in the Bible,
25:33
But Scofield's hard and fast rule was that while figures of
25:37
speech exist, they always point to a literal historical
25:40
fulfillment. So if a prophet uses poetic
25:43
language, the event it describes is still a real physical event.
25:47
Right when the Old Testament prophets talk about a restore
25:50
earthly Israel where the wolf lies down with the lamb and a
25:53
restore Jerusalem, dispensationalists say you must
25:56
expect a literal future Kingdom where that actual scenario
26:00
happens. It does not mean the Church
26:02
experiencing spiritual peace. No.
26:04
If God promised land to Abraham, Abraham's literal descendants
26:07
must get that literal dirt. That stance on literal
26:10
fulfillment requires the unique way of handling the current era.
26:14
If the Old Testament prophets were predicting A glorious
26:17
earthly Kingdom for Israel, and Jesus showed up, but that
26:20
Kingdom didn't happen, how do you explain the last 2000 years
26:23
of church history? Right.
26:24
How do we visualize that? I think the best way to
26:27
understand the classical dispensational view of the
26:29
Church is to think of it like an intermission or a parenthesis in
26:32
a grand stage play. A Play this, lay it out for us.
26:37
Imagine you are in a beautiful theater watching a massive
26:40
production about a king and his chosen nation.
26:43
The drama is building. The king finally arrives on
26:46
stage and offers his glorious Kingdom to his people.
26:49
But the people reject him. Yes, the people reject him.
26:52
Suddenly, the actors freeze. The curtain drops unexpectedly.
26:56
A completely different cast comes out in front of the
26:58
curtain and performs a totally distinct, unannounced play.
27:03
That unannounced play is the Church Age.
27:05
Yes, the Old Testament prophets never saw it coming.
27:08
They never wrote about it. And when this new cast finishes
27:11
their performance, they exit. The curtain rises again, the
27:14
intermission ends, and the original cast returns to the
27:17
stage to finish the story they paused 2000 years ago.
27:21
That theatre analogy captures the mechanics of the classical
27:24
system so perfectly. It makes it very easy to
27:26
visualize. To understand how they track the
27:28
timeline of this play, we need to look at what they call the
27:31
seven dispensations. 7 distinct eras.
27:34
How did Schofield? Schofield structured all of
27:37
human history by dividing it into these distinct eras.
27:41
He defined A dispensation as a specific period of time where
27:44
humanity is tested regarding their obedience to a specific
27:48
revelation of God's will. So the rules change in each era.
27:51
Yes, the rules change. These 7 dispensations begin with
27:55
innocence in the pristine Garden of Eden.
27:57
When Adam fails, it moves to conscience.
27:59
And after conscience. Then the human government after
28:02
the flood, then promise with Abraham, then the law with Moses
28:05
at Mount Sinai, then the present Church age which they called the
28:08
dispensation of grace, and it finally ends in the literal
28:11
Millennium. What is vital to understand
28:13
about this mechanism is that every single dispensation ends
28:16
in catastrophic human failure and divine judgement.
28:19
Every single one. It is a recurring pattern.
28:21
Man fails the test of conscience, leading to the
28:23
global flood. Man fails the test of the law
28:26
leading to the Babylonian exile. God sets the test, humanity
28:30
fails, God brings judgement, and then God introduces a new
28:33
dispensation with new rules. This highly segmented view of
28:37
history naturally created a stark dichotomy between the
28:40
period of the law and the period of grace.
28:42
And this is where Schofield ran into massive trouble.
28:45
Right, he really did. It was based largely on his
28:48
interpretation of John 1.17, which says the law was given
28:52
through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
28:57
Scofield's footnotes on that specific verse sparked outrage.
29:01
In his reference Bible, he suggested that under the
29:04
dispensation of law, God demands righteousness from humanity.
29:08
While under the dispensation of grace, God simply gives
29:11
righteousness to humanity. You can see why covenant
29:14
theologians recoiled at that phrasing.
29:16
Oh, absolutely. Critics read those footnotes and
29:19
immediately accused the dispensational system of
29:21
teaching two different ways of salvation.
29:23
They argued Schofield was saying Old Testament Jews were saved by
29:26
perfectly keeping the rules of the law, while New Testament
29:29
Christians are saved by receiving unmerited grace.
29:32
Now, to be fair, dispensationalists vehemently
29:35
denied they were teaching two ways of salvation.
29:37
Right, they insisted. Salvation has always been by
29:39
faith. Yes, but the
29:41
compartmentalization in their language was so stark, so rigid,
29:45
that it created major friction. It also led to another unique
29:49
feature of their system, the sharp separation between the
29:52
Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.
29:55
Most Christians use those two phrases completely
29:57
interchangeably. They do, but Schaefer and
30:00
Schofield argued they're totally different concepts.
30:02
How did they divide them? For them, the Kingdom of God is
30:05
the universal spiritual realm, encompassing all true believers,
30:10
angels and obedient creatures across all time.
30:13
It is invisible, eternal and mystical.
30:16
And the Kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a
30:18
highly specific, outward, visible, earthly political
30:21
Kingdom. It is the Davidic Kingdom that
30:24
Jesus explicitly offered to the Jewish people during his earthly
30:27
ministry. Because the Jewish religious
30:29
leadership rejected Jesus as their Messiah, that specific
30:33
literal Kingdom of heaven was postponed.
30:35
Yes, the offer was pulled from the table.
30:37
Which created the historical space for the parenthesis of the
30:40
Church Age. You have got it.
30:42
And this brings us to how that parenthesis finally closes,
30:46
which introduces John Nelson Darby's most famous and perhaps
30:50
most culturally impactful contribution to eschatology.
30:54
The pre tribulational rapture. That is the one.
30:56
If you grew up in American evangelicalism in the 80s or 90s
31:00
reading the left Behind books or watching movies about people
31:03
disappearing on airplanes, this is where that comes from.
31:06
It became a huge pop culture phenomena.
31:08
Darby popularized the idea of a secret, invisible return of
31:12
Christ to snatched the Church away from the earth in the blink
31:15
of an eye just before a literal 7 year period of global
31:19
catastrophe known as the Great Tribulation.
31:21
So the Church avoids the tribulation entirely.
31:24
Right during those terrible seven years, the church in her
31:27
mission is over, and God's primary focus returns to judging
31:30
and purifying the nation of Israel.
31:32
And then what happens after the seven years?
31:34
After that seven-year period, Christ makes a second, very
31:38
public return to the earth with the raptured Church to defeat
31:42
evil and set up the Jewish millennial Kingdom.
31:45
It is an incredibly structured, intricately timed system.
31:48
But just as Covenant theology had to fix its plumbing and
31:52
adjust its edges over the centuries, dispensationalism
31:55
faced intense, rigorous scrutiny.
31:57
Rights dollars in the mid to late 20th century started poking
32:00
holes in the classical system. The system had to go through
32:03
massive internal revisions. The shift really began with what
32:07
scholars call revised dispensationalism, spanning from
32:11
the 1950s through the 1970s. Who are the main guys driving
32:14
that revision? Theologians like Charles Ryrie
32:17
and John Woolver started quietly dropping some of the most rigid,
32:21
problematic aspects of the classical system.
32:25
Most notably, they dropped the concept of eternal dualism.
32:28
Eternal dualism? What is that?
32:30
Classical thinkers like Darby and Schaefer believe that the
32:32
earthly Israel and the heavenly church would remain separated
32:35
forever, even into eternity. Israel would live on a renewed
32:38
earth and the Church would live up in heaven.
32:40
They kept them separated forever.
32:42
Forever. But Ryrie and Walford looked at
32:45
the text and revised this, deciding that while Israel and
32:48
the church remain distinct entities with distinct promises,
32:51
they will eventually share the eternal state together.
32:54
So they end up inhabiting the same new creation described in
32:58
Revelation 21. Yes, they also largely dropped
33:01
the rigid absolute distinction between the Kingdom of God and
33:05
the Kingdom of Heaven. Acknowledging what their critics
33:07
had pointed out that the gospel writers used the terms almost
33:10
interchangeably depending on their audience.
33:12
Right, they smoothed out those rough edges.
33:14
I find the cultural shifts behind these theological changes
33:18
to be incredibly relevant. Theology does not happen in a
33:21
vacuum. It really doesn't.
33:23
Culture always plays a part. Hillier notes how the Body Life
33:26
movement of the 1970s, led by guys like Ray Steadman,
33:30
radically shifted how believers viewed themselves.
33:32
The 1970s were a huge turning point.
33:34
In Darby's day, back in the 19th century, the church was viewed
33:38
as a highly privatized, secret spiritual entity separating
33:42
itself from a doomed apostate world.
33:45
You hid in your lifeboat while the ship sank.
33:47
But that mentality changed dramatically.
33:49
By the 1970s, evangelicals were building mega churches,
33:53
launching global ministries, and re entering the political
33:56
mainstream in a major way. The church was becoming a highly
34:00
visible, corporate, active societal force.
34:04
So a theology of a secret parenthesis.
34:06
Church did not fit their new reality.
34:09
Right. The theology naturally shifted
34:12
to match the cultural reality of believers who felt they had a
34:15
major role to play in society, and that momentum carried right
34:18
into the development of progressive dispensationalism
34:21
from the late 1980s to the present day.
34:23
Progressive dispensationalism brought a massive,
34:26
groundbreaking shift, spearheaded by sharp biblical
34:29
scholars like Craig Blazing, Daryl Bock, and Robert Saussy.
34:32
What did those guys do differently?
34:34
They subjected the classical system to rigorous linguistic
34:37
and historical analysis, and they systematically dismantled
34:40
the parenthesis idea. They got rid of the
34:42
intermission. Yes, they argue that the Church
34:44
Age is not a sudden, disconnected interruption in
34:47
God's plan. Instead, they see the Church Age
34:50
as actively inaugurating the Messianic Kingdom right now.
34:53
Oh, that is a huge shift. They utilized a concept called
34:57
already, but not yet. The promises made to Israel in
35:01
the Old Testament are partially being fulfilled right now in the
35:04
church. But they await their complete
35:06
literal fulfillment in the future Millennium.
35:08
Exactly. Yes, you get the nail on the
35:11
head. They smoothed out the harsh
35:12
divisions between the seven dispensations, viewing them less
35:16
as isolated, disconnected testing periods and more as
35:20
progressive, deeply connected stages of 1 grand unfolding plan
35:25
of redemption. Wait, I need to stop you there.
35:27
Go ahead. If progressive dispensationalism
35:29
is saying that the church is currently fulfilling some of
35:32
Israel's promises in a spiritual sense right now, yes.
35:35
And covenant theology is saying that the church fulfills all of
35:38
Israel's promises. Aren't these two historical
35:40
rivals basically becoming the exact same thing?
35:43
It sounds like the two architects are suddenly building
35:45
the same house. That is a very perceptive
35:47
observation, and it points directly to the modern
35:50
convergence we are seeing in theological circles today.
35:53
So they are actually coming together.
35:55
We are narrowing the gap significantly.
35:58
Thanks to the rise of rigorous, historically grounded biblical
36:01
theology, both sides have moved out of their entrenched camps
36:05
and toward a consensus. That is honestly refreshing to
36:09
hear. It is both camps now acknowledge
36:12
that the unfolding Kingdom of God is a primary unifying theme
36:17
of the entire Scripture. So the progressive
36:19
dispensationalists are giving some ground on literalism.
36:22
Yes, they now accept that New Testament authors do in fact use
36:27
spiritualization when applying Old Testament texts to the New
36:31
Testament church. And the covenant side, it is
36:33
giving some ground too. Yes.
36:34
At the same time, modern covenant theologians readily
36:37
acknowledge that God's plan unfolds in distinct progressive
36:40
dispensational eras or administrations.
36:42
The fierce hostility of the past, where they accused each
36:45
other of heresy, has largely faded into a cooperative,
36:48
respectful dialogue. It is a much healthier
36:50
environment today. But there is still a remaining
36:52
wall between the two properties, right?
36:54
That they haven't completely merged into one single
36:57
theological lot. No, they are still distinct
36:59
houses. If you sit them down at a table
37:01
today, what is the one thing they still argue about?
37:04
The final major disagreement, the remaining load bearing wall
37:08
separating them, is the future of ethnic national Israel.
37:13
So they still disagree on the ending of the story.
37:16
Very much so. Progressive dispensationalists,
37:19
despite all their modern revisions and softening of
37:21
boundaries, still firmly maintain that there is a
37:24
distinct future for Israel in spiritual, national and
37:27
political terms. They still want the literal land
37:30
promises fulfilled. Yes, they still look for a
37:33
literal historical fulfillment of the land promises made to
37:36
Abraham. They believe Jesus will rule
37:38
from a physical throne in Jerusalem.
37:40
And covenant theologians. Covenant theologians, on the
37:43
other hand, see the future of Jewish believers entirely within
37:46
the unified body of the Church, with no separate geopolitical
37:50
Kingdom program awaiting them in the Middle East.
37:52
For them, the physical land of Canaan was always just a shadow,
37:55
pointing to the ultimate reality of the new heavens and new
37:58
earth. That is the dividing line today.
38:00
I have to say, looking back at the history of these two
38:03
frameworks, I see a lot of beauty in this evolution.
38:06
It is a fascinating historical process.
38:09
Instead of standing on opposite sides of a Canyon shouting at
38:12
each other with megaphones, these massive theological
38:15
systems have actively listened to each other over the decades.
38:18
They really have learned from one another.
38:19
They have recognized their own blind spots, submitted their
38:23
brilliant theories back to the biblical text for correction,
38:26
and moved toward a more nuanced, text driven center.
38:30
It shows a lot of humility, honestly.
38:32
OK, let's recap what we have covered in this deep dive.
38:35
We started by looking at the covenant driven, unified people
38:38
approach of covenant theology. We saw how it originated in the
38:41
post Reformation era. Right built on the heavy pillars
38:44
of the covenants of redemption, works and grace, viewing the
38:47
modern church as the new Israel. Then we examined the
38:50
dispensation driven distinct people's approach of classical
38:54
dispensationalism. Popularized by Darby and
38:57
Schofield, it created a sharp defensive wall between Israel
39:00
and the church. Mapping out a timeline of seven
39:03
distinct testing eras. And popularizing the idea of a
39:07
secret rapture. And finally, we watched how both
39:10
of these towering systems matured, debated, faced intense
39:14
criticism, and refined themselves over the centuries to
39:17
arrive at a much closer, respectful consensus today.
39:20
It is quite the historical. Arc So I turn to you, the
39:23
listener. Think about your own reading of
39:25
the text. When you sit down, open your
39:28
Bible, and read a prophecy in Isaiah, which framework do you
39:31
naturally lean toward? It is a great question to ask
39:34
yourself. Do you instinctively see one
39:37
continuous, unified flow of a single people saved by grace
39:41
throughout all of history? Or do you naturally
39:44
compartmentalize the text, seeing distinct programs,
39:47
distinct rules, and hard literal fulfillments for different
39:50
groups of people? To close our time together, I
39:52
want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over.
39:54
What have you got for us? We saw today how covenant
39:56
theology was heavily shaped by society's shift from medieval
39:59
feudalism to the idea of social contracts in the 17th century.
40:03
The political air they breathed changed how they saw God.
40:06
We also saw how revised dispensationalism was noticeably
40:10
shaped by the evangelical cultural movements of the 1970s,
40:14
as the church moved from a private lifeboat mentality to a
40:16
public corporate force. The culture pushed the theology.
40:20
Yes. So if our most robust,
40:22
meticulously constructed theological systems are visibly
40:26
influenced by the sociology and politics of their day, it raises
40:29
A vital question for us. I think I know where you are
40:32
going with this. How might the cultural air we
40:34
breathe right now, our modern obsessions with individualism,
40:37
technology or political polarization, be secretly
40:40
shaping the way we read our own sacred texts?