TWENTIETH CENTURY DISPENSATIONALISM:
WHAT AND WHENCE?
FOR some of our readers a definition of modern dispensationalism will be a necessity, and for all it will be a convenience. It has been defined as "that system of doctrine which divides the history of God's dealings with the world into periods of time, called "dispensations'." And it is an essential tenet of the system that "in each dispensation God deals with man upon a plan different from the plan of the other dispensations. . . . Each dispensation is a thing entirely apart from the others, and, when one period succeeds another, there is a radical change of character and governing principles." (Rock or Sand, Which?, by Matthew Francis).
For example, we are told that the present era is "the dispensation of Grace," and the last preceding was "the dispensation of Law"; and therefore the teachers of the new system strain their ingenuity to show that there was no grace in the preceding "dispensation," and there is no law now; whereas in fact there is all the law of God now that there ever was, and there was abundance of the grace of God in the "former times."
In the elaboration of this crude system of error, the greatest harm has been done to the revealed truth of God concerning this present era of the Gospel. According to the prophecies of the Old Testament and the apostolical scriptures of the New as they have always been understood heretofore, this is the long looked for era of the Kingdom of God, foretold by the prophets. As Peter stated it, "All the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after as many as have spoken, have likewise"--he had just referred to Moses--"spoken OF THESE DAYS" (Acts 3:24); and in his first Epistle he declares that the things now reported by those who preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, are the very things, including the salvation of souls, that were ministered in times past by the prophets; and that it was the very same "Spirit of Christ that was in them," Who now empowers the gospel preachers (I Pet. 1:9-12).
Likewise Paul emphatically declared that in all his preaching (which even the extremest dispensationalists acknowledge as belonging to this era of grace) he had said "none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come" (Acts 26:22).
But according to "dispensational teaching" this age is "a mystery," a gap of unmeasured length intervening between the past era of the natural Israel, and a future era in which (so it is taught) that apostate nation will be reconstituted and its earthly glories will be restored and enhanced. We are told that "this gospel era was not in the view of the prophets at all;" and this is maintained despite the plain statements of Scripture just cited above and of others to the same effect.
One of the unhappiest of the results of this violent wrenching of the "things the angels desire to look into" from the place to which the word of God assigns them, is that "the Kingdom of God" in its entirety, including "the gospel of the Kingdom" (Mat. 24:14; Acts 20:25; 28:31) has been transferred bodily from this present age, and "postponed" to an hypothetical and mythical "dispensation" yet to come. This surely is a matter of such importance as to demand the most earnest attention of every saint of God; for it does violence to both the Old Testament and the New.
A RADICAL SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE
It will be readily seen therefore, that we have here to do with a system of teaching which, whether true or false, is of the most radical sort. Hence if true, it is most astonishing that not one of the Godly and spiritual teachers of all the Christian centuries had so much as a glimpse of it; and if false, it is high time its heretical character were exposed and the whole system dealt with accordingly. And inasmuch as it contradicts what every Christian teacher, without a known exception, has held to be the indisputable truth of Scripture concerning the Gospel of God and the Kingdom of God, it clearly belongs in the category of those "divers and strange doctrines," against which we are specially warned (Heb. 13:9). For it is undeniably diverse from all that has been hitherto taught the people of God, and it is altogether "strange" to their ears. This I deem worthy of special emphasis, and hence would ask the reader to keep constantly in mind the fact of the absolute novelty of dispensationalism. For here is modernism in the strictest sense; and it is all the more to be feared and shunned because it comes to us in the guise and garb of strict orthodoxy.
WHENCE CAME THIS MODERN SYSTEM?
As regards the origin of the system: the beginnings thereof and its leading features are found in the writings of those known as "Brethren" (sometimes called "Plymouth Brethren," from the name of the English city where the movement first attracted attention) though it is but fair to state that the best known and most spiritual leaders of that movement--as Darby, Kelly, Newberry, Chapman, Mueller and others, "whose names are in the Book of Life" " never held the "Jewish" character of the Kingdom preached by our Lord and John the Baptist, or the "Jewish" character of the Gospels (especially Matthew), or that the Sermon on the Mount is "law and not grace" and pertains to a future "Jewish" kingdom.
From what I have been able to gather by inquiry of others, (who were "in Christ before me") the new system of doctrine we are now discussing was first brought to the vicinity of New York by a very gifted and godly man, Mr. Malachi Taylor, (one of the "Brethren") who taught it with much earnestness and plausibility. That was near the beginning of the present century, either a little before or a little after. And among those who heard and were captivated by it (for truly there is some strange fascination inherent in it) was the late Dr. C. I. Scofield, who was so infatuated with it that he proceeded forthwith to bring out a new edition of the entire Bible, having for its distinctive feature that the peculiar doctrines of this new dispensationalism are woven into the very warp and woof thereof, in the form of notes, headings, subheadings and summaries. There is no doubt whatever that it is mainly to this cleverly executed work that dispensationalism owes its present vogue. For without that aid it doubtless would be clearly seen by all who give close attention to the doctrine, that it is a humanly contrived system that has been imposed upon the Bible, and not a scheme of doctrine derived from it.
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