Pauline Dispensationalism

[kenod]

Peter is not the foundation of the church, what he said was the foundation.

Matthew 16 (King James Version)
15He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

16And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.


I would like to suggest an alternative reading:

16And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

What I am saying is that many churches (denominations) claim to be built on Jesus Christ, but only those believers who have received a personal revelation of who Jesus Christ really is, are part of the Church (the universal body of believers).

I believe the Church began with those who had a revelation of who Jesus Christ was ... that is, the disciples and Jesus' other followers.

John 20:28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

[BlessedinHim]

ok, I see what you are saying. You are not implying that Peter is the rock.
You are saying that the revelation of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the living God is the rock.

I would compromise with you a bit, Jesus Christ is the Rock, but in order for the church to be built He must be revealed to the person to become a true believer. Which is probably still saying about the same thing you are.

[BlessedinHim]

I was pondering something else today....I hope you haven't mentioned this :heh........I think all previous dispensations had little to go by for the next dispensation. How much are we truly missing? It will be a fantastic dispensation, I do believe.

eyes have not seen, nor ears heard....... I think it will be totally out of this world. It will be the cherry on top of the cream. Million times greater than anything we have seen or heard or felt. you are talking about being raptured and taken to heaven where we will ever be with the Lord, right??? I think about heaven often. My sinful nature is disgusting. This world holds little to nothing that I would want to stay for.

[kenod]

ok, I see what you are saying. You are not implying that Peter is the rock.
You are saying that the revelation of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the living God is the rock.

I would compromise with you a bit, Jesus Christ is the Rock, but in order for the church to be built He must be revealed to the person to become a true believer. Which is probably still saying about the same thing you are.

Yes, Jesus is the rock that we must build our lives on, but many nominal Christians go to church out of a sense of duty, not because they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. What we say with our mouth does not necessarily reflect our spiritual condition. A personal experience of being born again by the Spirit of God is essential to become a part of His Body, the Church.

Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

1Cor 12:3 no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

[BlessedinHim]

Yes, Jesus is the rock that we must build our lives on, but many nominal Christians go to church out of a sense of duty, not because they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. What we say with our mouth does not necessarily reflect our spiritual condition. A personal experience of being born again by the Spirit of God is essential to become a part of His Body, the Church.

Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

1Cor 12:3 no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

Absolutely. I would think going to church just out of a sense of duty would make it a works based thing. We should serve Christ out of the gratitude of our heart for what He has done for us. Albeit, Faith without works is dead, but works does not equal faith nor does works gain us anything in reality other than really tired minds and bodies.

Works done out of gratitude become a joy and are not a burden.
Works done out of duty are burdensome and heavy.

[BlessedinHim]

ISRAEL'S MESSIANIC KINGDOM
Miles J. Stanford


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The third major leakage of Covenant Theology into Dispensationalism concerns Israel’s Millennial Kingdom.

KINGDOMIZATION -- After Dr. Chafer’s Homegoing in 1952, Dallas [Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas], and similar dispensational schools and organizations, began to soften and blur the sharp Pauline distinctions of the rightly divided Word. The inevitable result has been that the Church is deprived of her heavenly identity. She begins to take on the earthly characteristics of Israel, its New Covenant, its Sermon, its Law, and its Kingdom.

As far back as 1875, Mr. J.B. Stoney said:

I fear there is a tendency abroad to exaggerate the standing and state of the OT saints in order to make little difference between the Church and Israel, and thus the heavenly distinctiveness is weakened and lost. The aim of the enemy from a very early date was to draw the saints from their heavenly calling (see Hebrews). Once heaven as a present position and portion is surrendered, the great privilege and position of the Church, the Body of Christ, is drained away.

For some time the catchword from seminary to church has been “kingdom.” Dispensational distinctions have been broken down to the point where: 1) The Church is a phase of Israel’s future millennial kingdom; 2) There is a recognition of a present form of the theocratic kingdom: “now/not yet.”

No wonder the Church is being flattened out and bound to the horizontal plane of Israel’s kingdom! Little wonder believers are being deprived of the knowledge and benefits of their vertical heavenly position in the Son at the Father’s right hand. This is not grace teaching, and hence not Church teaching. It is simply a fall from the cutting edge of Pauline Dispensationalism to the earthly law-oriented realm of Covenant and Theonomic theology.

One of the contributing factors to the kingdomization of the Church is the breakdown of the distinction between the “kingdom of God,” and the ‘”kingdom of heaven.” During the last 20 years or so dispensational leaders have been forsaking the distinctiveness of the kingdom of heaven as set forth in Matthew, more and more making it synonymous with the kingdom of God. But when the kingdom of heaven is no longer considered to be strictly Israel’s coming Messianic Kingdom, there emerges a loss of the scriptural separation between earthly Israel and the heavenly Church. Grace is made to partake of law.

[BlessedinHim]

CONTEMPORARY CONFUSION -- Nearly 50 years ago Dr. Chafer warned:

It has been a constant disposition on the part of certain writers to invest OT saints with the same position, qualities, and standing as those which belong to the believers who comprise the Church.

And there is more recently a disposition to carry the same realities that belong to the saved of this dispensation over into the kingdom dispensation and to Jews and Gentiles alike. Such assumptions are avoided when it is recognized that to the Church alone is accorded the heavenly position and glory. Of her alone it is declared that each of her members who make up Christ’s Body is made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. (Systematic Theology III: 327).

Nearly 75 years ago Dr. Newell predicted:

Failure to rightly divide between Kingdom and Church will lead to a wrong conception of the Bible, and a false interpretation of its truth and application of its promises.

One of the first things that will happen will be to spiritualize the kingdom promises of the OT and attempt to make them apply to the Church of this dispensation. This only results in confusion and conflict.

Conditions today in the seminaries and churches could not have been more accurately predicted!

Dr. Donald K. Campbell, president of Dallas, wrote in the book, Essays in Honor of J. D. Pentecost, 1985 (p. 155):

The two opposite viewpoints of premillennialism and amillennialism are still with us, though some modifications are taking place. Some premillennialists now view the present Church dispensation as the first phase of the fulfillment of the promised messianic kingdom, in that believers now experience the spiritual blessings of the kingdom, such as the blessings of Israel’s New Covenant.

This is indicative of the dispensational impoverishment of the Church. Take Israel’s New Covenant away from these Neo-Dispensational “modifiers,” and “progressives,” and their entire house of cards will collapse!

Dr. C.A. Blaising wrote in Bib Sac of July/Sept., 1988, p. 276:

It is amazing that in the writings of Walvoord, Pentecost, and Ryrie published in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the heavenly/earthly dualistic language is gone. A distinction between Israel and the Church is vigorously asserted and all the theological structures of distinction are present, except [that’s all it takes!] that the eternal destinies of the two peoples now share the same sphere. [In Christ?]

Consequently, the heavenly/earthly distinctions are dropped. Thus is begun a slow movement [30 years] away from the scholastic, classic, absolute distinction [between Israel and the Church] found from Darby to Chafer.”

Since there is this development (among dispensational seminarians) of relating the Church to Israel’s Millennial Kingdom, we will share some material by Dr. Chafer to the contrary:

The teachings of the Kingdom have not been applied to men in all ages; nay, they have not been applied to any man. Since they anticipate the binding of Satan, a purified earth, the restoration of Israel, and the personal reign of the King, they cannot be applied until God’s appointed time when these accompanying conditions on the earth have been brought to pass.

The kingdom laws will be addressed to Israel and beyond them to all the nations which will enter the Kingdom. It will be the first and only universal reign of righteousness and peace in the history of the world. One nation was in view when the law of Moses was in force in the earth; the individual is in view during the dispensation of grace [sic]; and the whole social order of mankind will be in view when the Kingdom is established on the earth.

The Church is not once mentioned in relation to the teachings of the Kingdom, nor are those teachings applied to her; for her part in the Kingdom is not to be reigned over, but to reign with Christ, her Head. She, being the Bride of the King, is His Consort. She will be under the heavenly teachings of grace, and her home will be in the bosom of the Bridegroom in the ivory palace of the King.

The King will rule with a rod of iron. Sin and iniquity will be rebuked instantly and judged in perfect righteousness. Clear conception of the glory of the Kingdom is lost if it is confused with the dispensation of grace [sic].

There is a dangerous and entirely baseless sentiment abroad which assumes that every teaching of Jesus must be binding during this dispensation [sic] simply because He said it. The fact is forgotten that the Lord Jesus, while living under, keeping, and applying the Law of Moses, also taught the principles of His future Kingdom, and at the end of His ministry and in relation to His Cross, He also anticipated the teachings of Grace. If this threefold division of His teachings is not recognized, there can be nothing but confusion of mind and consequent contradiction of truth.

The teachings of Grace are perfect and sufficient in themselves. They provide for the instruction of the child of God in every situation that may arise. There is no need that they be supplemented, or augmented, by the addition of precepts from either the Law of Moses or the teachings of the Kingdom (IV: 224).

[BlessedinHim]

MILLENNIAL SAINT -- Mr. J. Butler Stoney, Darby contemporary, gives us another slant on the same distinction between the Church and Israel’s Kingdom:

The difference between this present dispensation and that of the millennium is very distinct. The Christian is now joined to Christ and is one spirit with Him. Since I am united to Him, He is my Life; “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2).

“The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Here I have died, and my life is hid with Christ in God. The future earthly kingdom saint will live here on earth, but he will not be united to the Lord Jesus, he will not be dead to the flesh and the world, and he will be a man living in all the commandments and ordinances of the law blameless.

This then is the great difference—the heavenly saint has a standing of complete deliverance from the man in the flesh; while the millennial saint will be through grace empowered by the Spirit to do what God requires from man in the flesh. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Heb. 8:10).

Again, the way into the Holiest of All is now made manifest. We—the heavenly believers--have “boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus... through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb. 10:19, 20). The earthly millennial saint, though cleansed of his sins by the Blood, cannot speak of being inside the veil, because his dispensation is connected with this earth. If we admit that our position as worshippers is inside the veil, we must admit another great difference between a heavenly and an earthly saint.

One more difference is to be noticed: the saint united to the Lord Jesus in heaven, knowing deliverance in Him and worshiping in the Holiest of All, has a place in heaven prepared for him by the Lord Jesus Christ, which an earthly kingdom saint never could have.

True, he can speak of knowing the Lord of heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, when all things are made new; but he cannot speak of having a place prepared for him in the Father’s house, and still less speak of being raised up together with Christ, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6).

Thus we see the difference in status between the heavenly and the earthly saint. First, the connection with Christ is different, the saints during His rejection being united to Him in heaven, a privilege not known by, nor granted to, any other class of saints—neither to the OT saints, nor the millennial saints (Ministry X:36, 37).

In the one case, that of the earthly or millennial family, the law will be written in their hearts (Jer. 31:33), the inclination to do evil will be superseded. In the other family, the heavenly, that is, Christian, the Lord Jesus Christ is written in their hearts by the Holy Spirit; a great and important distinction, and indicating that the Christian’s blessings are in association with the Lord Jesus who has gone within the veil.” —W.J. Hocking.

Webcurator note: At times, Dr. Chafer's dispensational writings are an antinomy of the heavenly nature of Pauline Dispensationalism and the system of age-ism created by C.I.Scofield. Did the erroneous concept of a "dispensation of grace," a "church age," a "dispensation of the church," contributed to the "grounding to earth" of the Church as well? This theory is ably put forth in R.A. Huebner's Dispensational Truth, Vol. 1.

[BlessedinHim]

Did Zola Levitt and Fruchtenbaum both teach the same thing? After reading more, I think if they did teach the same thing, then they do/did indeed teach heresy, but perhaps in naivete they did so. I would have to re-read and see what Zola taught, as when I watched Zola, that was before I even heard about Pauline dispensationalism. All I can say is wow! learning about Pauline dispensationalism really changes things.

I hope this study so far has served to open eyes and hearts to a more profound view of God's word, who we are in Christ and where we stand as in relation to Christ and Israel.

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[Hootmon]

HeIsEnough
You know theologians have families to feed. If you keep uncomplicating the gospel, I fear their children may starve.:wave:spew