I intend for this to provide a reference for those of my friends who would like to have some guidance in answering the heresy of Dispensationalism. This is a living document; it's not possible for any one of us to know it so thoroughly we can always answer every argument. There are far, far too many variations. Rather, we present an answer from within the framework of our basic assumptions, which can be summarized in the terms: ANE mysticism, symbolic logic, Hebraic culture, somewhat of the Reformed tradition.
We can easily trace where the whole idea of Dispensationalism comes from, because the documents are still available to us today. Some years ago I found this excellent review and archived a complete copy. The document itself is loaded with links, and some are surely broken by now, but the tracing is the most complete I've seen. The basic assumptions of Dispensationalism were born of an attempt to answer the very common argument during the Reformation the Pope was Antichrist. It is well established the symbolic interpretation of Revelation and other apocalyptic prophecies was the mainstream among spiritual students of the Bible. For the Roman Church to protect the papal authority required introducing the elements of literalism and futurism, pushing the whole of John's Revelation into the future as concrete events.
There were other books by several Jesuit defenders, but the scandalous deception by one Manuel De Lacunza to hide his identity and pretend his book was by a Jewish rabbi takes the cake. It was his book which was embraced and translated by Edward Irving and gave birth to the Dispensationalist theology in the UK. Under his influence was the famous teenage seer Margaret McDonald, which gave us the full blown secret rapture and locked in the futurist assumptions. While there were many other figures involved, we know the major promoter after that was John Nelson Darby. There is a large array of documents across the web which pick up the narrative at this point. Though some of the best ones seem to have disappeared, it's still too easy to find the real story.
However, it was the American criminal C.I. Scofield who came to the attention of the Zionists. There is abundant evidence linking him to Samuel Untermeyer, an agent of the Rothschilds empire. Untermeyer paid Scofield's expenses while he composed his references for insertion in the biblical text, giving us the infamous Scofield Reference Bible. Then the Rothschilds published it through their wholly controlled Oxford Press. This Bible was heavily marketed and adopted to the point only those groups and traditions which consciously rejected it are unstained by its flawed assumptions.
Follow the money. This stuff was rammed down our throats, as it were, because it was perfectly adapted to Zionist needs to build a solid support base in the biggest bully of nations in modern times. There were a host of other efforts at the same time, but this one continues to reap a harvest of fanatical and entirely unreasoned support for Israel to commit any crime imaginable with impunity. This was precisely the reason Untermeyer invested in it.
These things we cannot forget: Jesus was the Son of God, the promised Messiah. We can understand even on a purely intellectual level why they rejected Him -- they were wrapped up in rationalist Hellenism, and He called them back to Ancient Hebrew Mysticism. They didn't use that terminology, but no other understanding makes as much sense when we review the debates He had with the Jewish leadership of His day. We can see they were too dense to grasp the parabolic and symbolic nature of their own Scripture, because His statements all reflect just that. They kept thinking in the literal and linear mode which now dominates all of Western Civilization.
We assert with full confidence whatever Jesus said was entirely from His Father. Whatever He said was the meaning of the Law was God's viewpoint, who gave the Law through Moses. When Jesus spoke, it didn't simply reflect Moses, but was of a higher authority than Moses. When they argued with Jesus, they were arguing with Almighty God, the Creator of all things who called them as a special nation.
It was Josephus, as a historian writing after his surrender to Roman forces, who gave us the term "Judaism" as a label for what the Jewish leadership believed at that time. By definition, then, Judaism is not Old Testament religion, but falsely claims to be. We note there is a whole raft of teaching in Judaism which was almost entirely oral at that time, but which was eventually recorded as the Talmud. It was derived entirely from this Hellenist perversion they had absorbed some three centuries before Christ was born, and Jesus summed it up as "the traditions of the elders" and rejected it completely. The Jewish scholars falsely insisted it was the summation of Moses' oral teaching, and gave it precedence over the written Law. Thus, Judaism serves as a rejection of Moses.
Under what terms did Israel conquer and occupy Canaan Land? We note from the many incidents of failure, and why, that it required a full commitment to the terms of the Torah. Not as we view legislation, but as the Ancient Hebrews viewed it -- a suzerain-vassal treaty, a covenant between a divine Nomadic Sheik of Heaven and his adopted household. This image is as close as anyone can come to understanding the nature of the Covenant of Moses. That ancient nation functioned as the extended family of God Almighty, and the entire feel is rooted in the ANE nomadic sheik culture. This was God's choice of self portrayal, and His terms for fulfilling the promises.
From that point forward, the fulfillment of the promises continually hinged on their demonstrated personal loyalty. The idea this is somehow absolute and concrete, as we commonly assume in Western theology, is utterly foreign to the Bible. The prophets along the life span of the Nation of Israel warned graphically the promises were dependent on loyalty, that there was a breaking point when it would all go away. So we see the hassles from demanding a human monarch -- that was sin. We see the breakup of the kingdom, again arising from sins on all sides. We see the loss of the Northern Kingdom from going too far too long. We see the Southern Kingdom exiled for something similar. On and on it goes. Finally, the Messiah comes and offers them one last chance to get it right, but they reject Him.
That was the end. Their existence as a nation ended with the Cross. What made them special as a nation on the earth? Whatever your answer, it was symbolized by the Temple and the Holy of Holies as the place for God's Spirit to dwell. It had been vacant for several centuries, but upon Jesus' death, God Himself tore the Temple Veil in two. To drive the point home, the Apostles promptly after the Ascension taught there was from that point forward no other sacrifice acceptable to God under any covenant. Either you were a temple God yourself, or you had nothing to do with Him. From that day on, "His People" was a term which applied only to those who were born-again.
Jews who do not embrace Jesus as their Messiah are not the People of God. Jews who do not embrace the Law as Jesus taught it are not following the Law. Jews who attempt to form a nation outside these now current terms are not under any covenant at all. They are just sinners and no different from any other human on the earth. Any promises you imagine are as yet unfulfilled under the Old Covenant would still require they see Jesus as the only sacrifice for sins, and must embrace the Ancient Hebrew understanding of the Law, not the Hellenized perversion which stands today. No part of Modern Israel does this, so nothing about her existence is a blessing of God.
It ain't this Israel.
By Ed Hurst
14 February 2010
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