Against Dispensationalism

Our friend Martin Downes of Againist Heresies has interviewed Kim Riddlebarger. They concentrate on eschatological issues and discuss the baneful effects of dispensationalism: part 1 and part 2. Here's a snippet to whet your appetites,

MD: I take it that you would consider a dispensational hermeneutic to be an incorrect way to read and understand Scripture. How serious an error would you consider dispensationalism to be?

KR: Yes, I consider dispensationalism to be a very problematic way to read Scripture. While dispensationalism is a hermeneutic (despite protests to the contrary), one can be a dispensationlist and a five-point Calvinist. John Nelson Darby and John MacArthur come to mind. But dispensationalism’s two interpretive presuppositions (that God has distinct redemptive purposes for Gentiles and national Israel, and that we must interpret biblical prophecy “literally”) are highly problematic. God’s redemptive purpose is to save his elect–both Jew and Gentile. This is why there is one gospel, and this is why Paul can tell us that Christ’s purpose (under the new covenant) is to make Jew and Gentile one (cf. Ephesians 2:11-22). This flies directly in the face of the dispensational hermeneutic which sees one gospel, but distinct redemptive purposes for Jew and Gentile.

And while dispensationalists rail against those who “spiritualize” the Bible, the amillennarian insists upon interpreting Old Testament prophecy as Jesus and the apostles do. The tough thing for dispensationalists to face is that Jesus and the apostles do the very thing dispensationalists claim should not be done. This means that at the end of the day, it is dispensationalists who don’t take the Bible “literally” since they insist that Old Testament passages which speak about the role of Israel, tell us in advance what the New Testament writers actually mean. This, of course, is highly problematic. The New Testament writers must be allowed to interpret the Old Testament, especially in light of the coming of Christ.

All of that is to say, dispensationalism certainly does not rise to the level of heresy. But it really does obscure clear passages, and it does not allow us to understand the course of redemptive history as Jesus and the apostles understand it. Ironically, it was the zealots and Pharisees of Jesus’ day, who were most angry with Jesus when he told them that the kingdom promises of the Old Testament were realized in him, and not in a national kingdom, or a restored nation of Israel.