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Originally Posted by Wannabee  This can be really hard to pin down Jeff. Dispensationalism has different dispensations within it's own lifetime. You have classic, Scoffield, Darby, Ryrie, MacArthur, etc. None of them would agree in regard to their theological understanding. MacArthur might agree in regard to what the others thought, but he's disagree with their position. And, he really doesn't call himself a dispensationalist any longer because of the difficulty in nailing it down. His hermeneutic is dispensational though (taught by same profs I was).
There are some dispies who break God's revelation up, as has been mentioned. Some of these break it into many separate dispensations. However, many see more continuity than that, simply seeing progressive revelation and time periods in between. CT does much the same, yet with covenants. What many covenantalists call covenants, many dispies would call dispensations.
But, due to a dispensational understanding of the church and Israel, there is a definite change that took place with the institution of the church. This is the one area that apparently remains constant. And I don't see how that will change.
Unfortunately, there are many dispensationalists that have a "God had to try another method" mentality. Be patient. Frankly, the teaching they're receiving stinks. Men proclaim Christ, but have no understanding of God's sovereignty nor of the implications of such ignorance. Such understanding is not due to careful exegesis, but from men simply proclaiming what they've been taught to think without being taught how to think. That's one major difference between a good seminary and all the others. Do they tell you what to think, or teach you how to think? |
I think one of the relevant questions in this whole discussion today should be, "When is a dispensationalist no longer a dispensationalists?" No doubt, Ryrie and others would deny the name to progressives like Bock and Blaising. I believe I read an MTS article a few years back where R. Thomas, in so many words, also said that the progressives have abandoned what is fundamental to dispensationalism (if I have time later I will look for the article). The church/Israel distinction is certainly a key. On the other hand, I think there are dispensationalists (maybe MacArthur but I'm not sure) who would see some kind of continuity between Israel and church while a lot (maybe most) CT's also recognize that there is discontinuity there.
I, personally, think that Bock and others like him are so far from traditional dispensationalism that it's questionable whether they ought to hold to the label. It seems like they're on the border of something like historic premill.