A Genealogy of Dispensationalism
Josiah Matthews · Dec 7, 2003
Church History, No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482623197654

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

in different periods of Church history. Okay, this chart you've seen before, it shows the different issues that the Church has been concerned with throughout its history. And remember, they started off, the Church started off focusing in on the Canon, and then moved through the Godhead and the Doctrine of Man, and then at the time of the Reformation, focused in on authority, salvation, and the Church. And Then, more recently, the doctrine of last things, or eschatology, and then spiritual growth has been a focus of study. This note at the bottom says that the subject of last things also includes understanding how God views history. So, when we talk about end times or or as we study last things, we're also studying history, biblical history, and how God viewed that.

In other words, take some of the covenants that God made with the nation of Israel, unconditional covenants. God, of course, recognizes Israel's failure and even rejection of their Messiah, but is God finished with Israel? How does God view what, you know, I'm sorry, How does God view Israel's history in relation to the future? In relation to the Millennial Kingdom in the future, for example. This slide also should be familiar.

It shows the groups of persons that adhered to a literal method of interpreting the Scriptures. To refresh your memory, on the left there, a definition of literal method is, is that the text is to be interpreted literally, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It also gives due consideration to elements of language, history, and culture. So that's what we're referring to when we talk about the literal method of interpreting the Scriptures. Just what does the text say? We'll go back to this slide.

The authors of the Old Testament, they certainly intended their writings to be interpreted literally, whether they were historical books they were writing, or psalms, or even prophecies, they meant what they said. So, Ezra and the scribes, they also interpreted scriptures literally.

Christ and the apostles, they too. Then after the beginning of the Church Age, you have The churches in Syria, Asia Minor, they continue to interpret literally. And Jews. I don't believe it's been but the past couple centuries that we've had a liberal branch of Jews. Throughout history, Jews have traditionally interpreted scriptures literally. So, as you step through the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, Again, it's the Jews that maintain the literal interpretation of Scripture, and some Roman Catholic churches. And then, at the end, we have Protestants and Jews still.

Okay, why are we talking about that? Well, since we're talking about dispensationalism today, the dispensational view of Scripture is founded upon a literal interpretation of Scripture. Charles Ryrie said something like, If someone consistently interprets the Bible literally, they'll become a distensationalist. Because the distensationalist just goes to the Word of God and interprets it literally, and then comes up with the distinctions between Israel and the Church, differences between law and grace, and we'll talk about more of that in a moment.

By the way, the allegorical method takes the text. They do recognize that there are actual words there, but they read the text, and then they go for a deeper meaning. So, they like peel the skin off, and they try to get to something deeper. So, there's something more there than what's written, and so they allegorize the meaning of the Scripture. Here's a couple examples.

If you study Zechariah 14, Luke 1, Acts 1, and Revelations 19-20, you see that these are passages which talk about the upcoming Millennial Kingdom, when Christ will return at the Mount of Olives and inaugurate the thousand-year reign, primarily for the Jewish people. So, if we interpret these verses literally, we understand that. But the allegorical method takes those same verses and chapters and comes up with a different meaning.

For example, they say that when the Scriptures refer to Christ's second coming, it's actually talking about His coming into our hearts. Or, when the Scriptures talk about the Kingdom, it actually means that Christ is going to reign through the Church. So the verses that talk about Christ actually physically reigning on Earth for a thousand years, we don't understand it that way. We understand that Christ is reigning through the Church in a figurative or spiritual way.

So that's what they do with those same scriptures. Then, as we've talked about before, the Preterist group, they interpret the Second Coming passages. They believe that those passages have already been fulfilled in 78B when Titus, The Roman captains destroyed Jerusalem. So there, Christ came figuratively in judgment, and He won't. He won't come again, literally, some of them say.

Okay, we'll look at some essential elements of Distensationalism. The sine qua non, it's sometimes called, of Distensationalism. Before I do that, if it's helpful, Charles Ryrie has a definition of dispensationalism, or of a dispensation. He says, a dispensation is a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God's purpose. So God is the manager of the different dispensations. And here are some of the essential elements of Dispensational Teaching.

First, Israel and the Church are distinct. They're separate entities. So, when we go to the Word of God, and we read about Israel, we understand that when the Scriptures talk about Israel, they're talking about the Nation of Israel, if not Jacob, the person Israel.

Every time. Every time. In the Bible, where Israel occurs, it's referring to literal Israel, right? The nation of Israel. Or the person Jacob. And likewise, when we study the Scriptures and we read about the Church, every time it's talking about the body of Christ. A group different than Israel. It's talking about the body of Christ. The Bride of Christ.

That is not what people do when they interpret allegorically. It's common for people to say that the Church actually replaces Israel. That is, Israel, because of their failure, was permanently truncated. And then the Church came in and now inherits all those promises that God made to Israel. Or people commonly say that you and I, members of the Church, are spiritual Israel. So we partake of of some of Israel's covenants and blessings spiritually. So the distinctions between Israel and the Church are maintained in dispensationalism. Does that make sense?

A second essential element is consistent literal interpretation of Scripture. And what's interesting is that Some Reformed or Covenant theologians actually write very good books on Biblical interpretation. But when they come to prophecy, Biblical prophecy, they then allegorize the prophecies. So we're saying that to consistently interpret the Scriptures literally is an essential element of dispensationalism. And it's usually prophecy where people allegorize. One warning though, a lot of dispensationalists over the past several hundred years have been guilty of allegorization as well. But what's typically done is they'll go to the Old Testament and they'll interpret the prophetic passages literally, because that's important, but then the other stories in the Old Testament are allegorized, made types of and things.

Okay, and thirdly, the underlying purpose of God in history and the future is the glory of God Himself. Okay? And that's distinct from another view which could say that the overarching theme of the Bible is salvation. or the overarching theme of the Bible is the Kingdom of God. But what we believe is that God's purpose, the theme of Scripture, throughout different dispensations, throughout Israel's history, throughout the Church's history, throughout the Millennial Kingdom to come, and even the judgments to come, in all those different events or people groups, God will be glorified. And as we typically do, we'll step through each of the different periods of Church history and see what was taught concerning those three elements of dispensationalism. The first thing we'll do is we'll take a look at Acts 1, 6-11. And this took place after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. He had been with his disciples for 40 days, talking with them about the Kingdom. And we understand that to be the Millennial Kingdom.

The disciples then asked Jesus, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the Kingdom to Israel? I just gave it away, I think. Let me ask you a question and please respond. What Kingdom of Israel were the disciples thinking about? What were they talking about? What was on their mind? The earthly kingdom. So they were wanting to know if Christ at that time was going to inaugurate the kingdom, start this thing off. They're ready to go.

They're wondering, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? And then, in verse 7, Jesus said to them, it is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority. So, does it seem like, here in verse 7, that Jesus rebuked them for their understanding that there would actually be an earthly kingdom? What do you think?

No. Okay. That's right. He just says the time is not now. So he's not rebuking and saying, you guys missed the bolt. All those Old Testament passages that talk about the Millennial Kingdom aren't to be interpreted literally, they're to be interpreted allegorically, come on. He doesn't say that to them. He just says, it's not time now, or it's not for you to know when I'm going to do that, is what he says. And it's also interesting that that he mentions the times or ethics which the father had fixed by his own authority. So God is the manager of his household. God is the sovereign one. God determines when these different dispensations occur.

Okay, now in verse 8, Jesus says, "...but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you And you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. So they're asking, Lord, are you now going to restore the Kingdom to Israel? And he says, okay, it's not for you to know the times when I'm going to do these things, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. What do you think he's referring to in verse 8 there? What specifically do you think he's referring to there? Pentecost. The beginning of the church age. So He's referring to the Church, right there. There's more.

And after Christ had said these things, He was lifted up while the disciples were looking on. And a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they, the disciples, were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, I'm sure they were shocked, right? Beyond belief. Behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.

They, the angels, said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven." Okay, when the angels tell the disciples that Jesus, who has been taken up from them into heaven, will come in just the same way as they watched him go. How do you think, or I'm sorry, in what way would Jesus return? Okay, in a physical way. What else? How else? In a glorified way? With power? Okay. Alright. Okay. Visibly? Would it come from the sky? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. That's right.

And let's just peek at a couple of Old Testament passages. If you'd like to go to Zechariah 14. It's one of the last books in the New Testament. Second to last. In the Old Testament, I'm sure. I'm really confusing it. Okay. So in Zechariah 14, verse 4, it says this. Wait till you get there. And then just stay in Zechariah 14. We'll read another verse there too.

So Zechariah 14, verse 4 says that in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east. and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley." Well, guess where these guys were here as recorded in Acts chapter 1? They were on the Mount of Olives with Jesus. So, the Scriptures are pretty clear as to what's going to happen.

Another thing we could look at is Matthew Matthew 24.30, this verse says, if you still have your finger in Zechariah, keep it there.

This verse says, And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And I think that may be a direct quotation from Daniel 7. So anyway, you see the Old Testament, this is in Matthew, talking about Christ returning in the sky to the earth. And He even mentions clouds.

And here in Acts 1, verse 9, it says that Jesus was received, a cloud received Him out of their sight. And then the angels say, the same way that Jesus left, He's going to come back. And it's going to happen just that way. Okay. I said we'd look at Zechariah 14, and the verse I was thinking of there was verse 9. I'll mention it. Verse 9 says, And the Lord will be king over all the earth, And that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one."

So, again, this is what was on the disciples' mind, the Millennial Kingdom. And they were told that the Millennial Kingdom wouldn't occur right now, but that the Church Age would occur now. And it took them quite a few years to grasp what was going on in the Church, during the Church Age. But then the angels told them that that one day, just as Jesus left, He's going to return. The next era of church history is what we call here the early church period.

And Philip Schaaf makes this comment. We've read this before. He did not believe in a literal millennium, Philip Schaaf, but he observed this. about this period of time. He said, ìThe most striking point in the eschatology of the Anti-Nicene Age is the prominent Kiliasm or Millenarianism, a widely current opinion of distinguished teachers such as Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and Lactantius.î And Kiliasm or Millenarianism is just a belief in the literal thousand-year millennium. And he's saying that during this period of time, that was the prominent understanding. This chart also, I think you're familiar with, it shows John's direct disciples and the disciples of John's disciples.

And in each case where we have record, each one of these guys believed in a literal thousand-year reign. It's also necessary to make the comment that things were still foggy. They didn't understand end times as clearly as we do now. They believed that there was going to be a literal millennium, but they believed that Israel was permanently cut off, and that the Church inherited Israel's promises, and that the Church would go into the Millennial Kingdom.

They also believed that they were in the tribulation. Interesting. Because of what was going on around them. Christianity was illegal, they were being persecuted and killed, so they figured, alright, this is a tribulation. But, they were wrong. That could be it. Yeah, that could be it. It's also just a temptation for for people to interpret the Scriptures, to interpret the Scriptures in light of their present circumstances. And that's called historicism. And so these guys were guilty of that. But they did believe that there would be a literal Millennial Kingdom for a thousand years on Earth. Some more things about this period.

Justin Martyr held that there were four periods in God's plan. and these other Irenaeus, Tertullian, Victorinus, and Nefati have also held similar views. While holding to the setting aside and continuance of Israel as a people of God, Justin Martyr also saw the Church as spiritual Israel, inheriting its benefits. But none of the early Church Fathers were entirely clear or inconsistent regarding their interpretation of Scripture and future things. They did understand some things correctly but still they were obscure in a lot of areas.

This chart you have as a handout and you can take some time to study this later on. We're not going to go over this today. It's a well put together diagram and it shows and actually cites the works. where these different Church Fathers stated their belief in relation to the Church in Israel and the Millennial Kingdom. And all of their works, I believe, are available online. You can just search for them on the internet and download them on your computer, if you have one. So you can take your time if you're interested in studying through this. Okay.

The Septu-Millennial view is found in the Epistle of Barnabas, and views like this were common around this time in Church history. They believed that there were six periods of Earth's history, each period being a thousand years in length. And the Millennium of Christ's reign on Earth is going to be the last of the thousand-year period.

Well, there's seven dots, there's seven lines up there, so I'm honestly not sure. So, and Vern's not here to ask, and he put this together. It says six here, and septa millennia, I was looking at that this morning, and septa in Latin refers to like divisions or fences, so there's just groups of millennia. But septa means seven, so I don't know. So probably seven. Yeah, I hope not. Yeah, it could be. I think there is something that we should fix in there. I'm not sure what. But anyway, this Septu-Millennial view can be found in the Epistle of Barnabas. Okay, and the next church period... Creation, yeah. Which period? The last period? The beginning would start with creation, so it encompasses all of time before the eternal state.

In the next church period, some significant shifts occurred in the Christian's understanding of end times. Because Christianity was now legal, in fact, the official religion of the Roman Empire, and Christianity has military support now, the Church became very comfortable in the world And they started to view the Kingdom as already present.

So now, instead of believing that Christ is going to return to Earth, and He will be the King, and He will actually reign, they started to distort that, and they began to teach that Christ was reigning through the Church, and we're in the Kingdom now. Because that then became popular, the premillennial and literal views of the Bible began to be oppressed and even persecuted.

And if you remember, the allegorical method which produces this amillennial view came from Alexandria, Egypt. And Origen was one of the main guys that propounded that view. As we step into the medieval period, we see that the Church is teaching these three things.

The Church replaces Israel. Secondly, the Church was the earthly kingdom. And thirdly, the events of Revelation 6-19, and those are the chapters of Revelation that talk about the Tribulation. And so thirdly, the events of Revelation 6-19 were taking place during the Church Age.

And they came to those three conclusions by allegorical interpretation. These views taken together caused a great many to view the barbarian, Moslem, and Viking invasions, as well as the future Black Plague epidemics, as judgments of God against the sins of the people.

And notice it cites Deuteronomy 28, 14, and what is that passage of Scripture talking about from your studies? the cursings of the nation of Israel for being disobedient. So, at least they were balanced. They didn't just take Israel's good things. They also took the bad things of Israel, the cursings. But their understanding was skewed there.

So, in this same era, the Franciscans arose within the Roman Catholic Church. And they put forth two end-time teachings that are still popular today among Dispensationalists. The first is that the Pope is the Antichrist. And a lot of Dispensationalists do believe that and teach that. But it came from the Franciscans. And the other thing they teach that's relevant for us today is that Revelation chapters 2 and 3 represent successive periods in Church history.

Pullman's Brethren, and even Dispensation was today, have that same understanding. But it originated with these guys. As we step into the Reformation era, we see that the Reformers, and we've talked about this before, the Reformers did a lot of good things. They helped us out a lot.

They recovered the basis of authority, which is Scripture alone. They recovered the doctrine of justification. They emphasized personal Bible study and independent interpretation. In other words, you and I could go to the Word of God now and interpret the Scriptures for ourselves, instead of needing the Church to interpret the Word of God for us. But, they left a couple things unchanged. They continued their alliance with the States, and they continued to interpret Scripture allegorically.

This is a slide that shows an overview of Covenant theology, and you can see that they believed, and still believe, that God has made two Covenants with mankind. The Covenant of Works, which Adam and Eve broke when they sinned, and then the Covenant of Grace, which starts just after the Fall, and will continue on. And in doing this, they basically teach that God has one people, Israel and the Church are the same, and all prophetic portions of Scripture are interpreted allegorically. And they also would teach that the overarching theme of history is salvation, soteriology, instead of the glory of God, like we were talking about earlier.

In England, there were some prolific writers, and we're going to look at several slides which talk about these different men. The first is John Bale. He wrote plays. rather than direct discourse, to avoid confrontation with the established Church. A subtle way to go about expressing his views. So he would write plays, which would reflect his theological ideas, but he wouldn't write books or papers about it. And in his plays, he portrayed seven periods of time in Earth history.

Each of the periods ended in failure, and was judged by God, and a remnant continued on into the next period. Baal saw the binding of Satan and the defeat of the Antichrist as still future." And that was very different from what most of the other writers believed, because the Church at this time was still teaching predominantly that they were in the Kingdom now, so Satan was bound, because he's going to be bound during the Kingdom, that's what Revelation tells us. But Bale said, no, the buy-in of Satan and the defeat of the Antichrist is still future, it hasn't happened yet.

Robert Pont, another fellow, was a Scottish theologian, son-in-law of John Knox, and he believed, from studying the Scriptures, that the Jews have a specific history and future based upon Daniel chapter 9. And in Daniel chapter 9, The 70 weeks are talked about, where each week is a period of 7 years, and the 70 weeks need to expire before the Messiah will return. His time periods of earth history were creation to Noah, the first, then Noah to Abraham, then Abraham to Solomon, Solomon to Christ, Christ to 1056, I'm not sure what happened on that date. And then 1056 to the end.

But it's interesting, because these guys were looking at scriptures and saying, all right, God works with these people differently. They were trying to understand what God was doing. Hugh Broughton, a Puritan persuasion, pictured five periods from Adam to Christ.

He studied and taught Hebrew and had an intense desire to see the Jews come to Christ. He presented Daniel as laying out the future of the Jews and envisioned the Jews coming to Christ in the future. So again, this is different than what had been taught for centuries before him. Most people were teaching that the Jews were permanently cut off.

God was done with the Jews and now God was working with the church, and the church would inherit all the Jewish prominence and covenants. Well, again, Broughton looked at the Scriptures and said, No, the Jews are distinct, and Christ will come to the Jews in the future. I'm sorry, the Jews come to Christ in the future.

But, he did some date setting of his own, and he set the date 2072, and the Puritans were famous for setting dates, but his is the only Puritan date that hasn't occurred yet. Hopefully I'll be around to see if he's right. That'd be cool. Okay, Thomas Brightman. While Brightman held the views we would likely not embrace, he did foresee a coming Jewish nation and kingdom distinct from the Church.

And the reason we're saying all this is because this is very important. A lot of people claim that John Darby concocted dispensationalism. Well, John Darby wasn't born until 1800, so these essential elements of dispensationalism are clear centuries before Darby was even born. I don't knock Darby, by the way. I think he's a great guy. I named my daughter after him.

Joseph Mead, he was a very influential writer. He taught that the conversion of the Jews, he taught the conversion of the Jews, and now they're in unbelief and apostasy, but they will again believe and depend upon the Messiah right before He returns. He taught the literal return of Christ, a thousand-year millennial kingdom, and he viewed Daniel's writings as a calendar of the Jews and Gentiles. And here's a copy of his Key of the Revelations. Perched and demonstrated. Their S's look like F's.

And the present era, or the present church history period, includes Watts, Darby, Walvoord, and around the time of Watts there were other guys that also had dispensational schemes. Watts had a dispensational scheme identical to Darby and Schofield, except that Watts had six dispensations instead of seven, because he didn't view the millennium as a dispensation. He believed in the literal millennium, but he just didn't include it in his scheme. Around the same time as Watts, John Edwards lived, and he had a dispensational scheme.

You had a French guy, Pierre Poiret, or something like that. He had a distance, excuse me. Watts, the hymn writer, did, from what I understand, he did write about, he mainly wrote hymns, but he did publish some books or papers or something. Can you vouch for that, Doug, or you're not familiar with that?

Darby, he did a lot to help out with propounding or spreading the message of dispensationalism in Europe and even America. We'll talk about that in a minute. He came to America on several occasions. And then, more recently, Walvord, who went to be with the Lord last year, he, for decades, also spread the dispensational teaching.

So, these guys interpreted Scripture literally, distinguishing between Israel and the Church. Israel is Israel, the Church is the Church, when they appear in the Word of God. And when allegories do occur in Scripture, it's clear that this passage is an allegory. For example, in Galatians 4. John Nelson Darby formulated a defined dispensational and rapture teaching in combination with recognizing that the Church's future and identity is distinct from Israel's future and identity.

He was originally a clergyman in the Church of England in Ireland. This is a story of how he lost the Church of England the Roman Catholics were converting to Protestantism at a rate of 600-800 a week at this time. This is when he was in his late 20s.

And because of this, the Roman Catholics started to persecute the clergy of the Protestant Church. So the Archbishop of the Church of England, or of that area where Derby was near Dublin, they went to the state and sought protection from the state, from the Catholics. So Darby put two and two together and said, no, the head of the Church is Christ in Heaven, and not the state here on Earth. So he had some problems with what the Church of England was doing there, so he left. And some other of his brothers in Christ left, too, at that time. And they were kind of the leader to that Plymouth Brethren movement.

But Darby did come to America on several occasions, and he would visit James H. Brooks in St. Louis. Brooks was influential in starting a lot of the Bible conferences in that same time here in America. Brooks wrote a book in 1870 called The Lord Cometh, and I brought different books if you want to look at them afterwards. I don't have that book by James Brooks, I do have a couple others. If you want to look at him afterwards, I have some books by Darby, too, and Sir Robert Anderson.

In 1884, he wrote The Coming Prince, referring to Jesus Christ coming, you know, The Coming Prince. He was a neat guy. He was the director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Scotland Yard in England, during the time of Jack the Ripper in England. That was his employment, and on his retirement, he was knighted. So that's why Sir Robert Anderson. And then Schofield, of course, his reference Bible, published in 1909, did wonders to promote dispensationalism. In a previous class, we talked about the influence that the Schofield Bible has had here in America since it was published.

Yeah? Yeah, I don't agree with him. Yeah. Around that point, right. Yeah. I think so. Right. Yeah. I would say, yeah, that's an example of allegorizing. Because the scripture does make some types, but there's like, I think there may be like 17 actual scriptural types. That number may not be right, but there's a limited number of types that the Bible actually makes. And so, It's my preference just to stick with those types, because if you open the door to interpreting the Old Testament allegorically, the sky's the limit. Everything's a type of this.

Do you think Schofield kept to his recommendations on Sabbath? I don't know. I'd have to look at it. Sorry, I don't know. The Schofield Reference Bible was influential. In fact, a lot of the opponents to Dispensationalism today are bitter against the Schofield Reference Bible. I had a guy at a Sunday School class in Virginia about two or three years ago. Our Sunday School class was studying through Miles Stanford's Numb but the Hungry Heart. And he stopped me in the middle and he just said, you got that out of your Schofield Reference Bible, didn't you? And I was like, no. And this was before I had studied a lot of There's some church history, so I didn't really see his point, you know. I didn't know where he was going. But I saw the same guy at the post office a couple weeks later, and a little, in a more light-hearted way, he yelled at me out the window, Hey, you been studying your Schofield Reference Bible lately? And I had one at that time, too.

Okay, this is the traditional view of the seven different distensations promoted by Watts. Darby, Schofield, and others. Each dispensation or economy has a different governing relationship in which God's the administrator, man's the steward. In each dispensation, there's a test for man, man fails, and then there's judgment, and then sometimes there's transition periods between the next dispensation.

Next, we'll mention that in 1924, Dallas Theological Seminary was founded by Louis Barry Schaeffer. And, of course, that school did a lot to promote the importance of rightly dividing the Word of God. And then, in 1952, John Walvord became the president of Dallas Theological Seminary until 1986. And until his death just last year, he was still involved in teaching and writing books.

Alright, since we're talking about dispensationalism, it's important to mention these guys. Progressive dispensationalism started in the early 80s, and it spread like wildfire throughout the Church, sadly. What it does is it blurs the distinction between Israel and the Church, It's kind of a compromise of covenant theology.

But Daryl Bach and Craig Blazing, guess where they were from? Dallas. They're professors at Dallas Theological Seminary. They wrote a book called Bruguette to Dispensationalism, and then Robert Saussie of Talbot Theological Seminary, about the same time, wrote another book that spread this view.

Yeah? And I really have to say that it began earlier than that. Go for it, yeah. Ernie and I kind of grew up in a church where the rest of the convention was taught not under that name. And we didn't even know that it was, but we were taught that the church gets all the blessings of Israel. And I don't think that's what covenant says. But no, I think he taught that. Yeah. That's right. So it wasn't an official movement at that point, but yet it was in churches. Yeah, good point. And that was in California. So, here's some tenets of this view.

They deny the need for consistent, literal interpretation of Scripture. Some claim that Christ is now reigning on David's throne, where Christ is seated at the Father's right hand. So, the Scriptures that talk about Christ reigning on Earth, why not interpret those literally anymore? They interpret them kind of spiritually or allegorically. So, Christ is reigning now, they say, at the Father's right hand, on David's throne. So, David's throne is a heavenly throne, not an earthly throne, so they're making They're doing some new things that make them not worthy to be called dispensationalists.

They claim that Israel and the Church are not two separate peoples of God. They claim that the Church was revealed in the Old Testament. So we maintain that the Church didn't exist. The Church was a mystery. People didn't know that this Church Age was going to occur. until it was revealed, but they say, no, the Church is found in the Old Testament. And this view is dominant at Dallas and Moody now, and other schools that used to be biblically sound.

They also have a method of interpreting scriptures that they call the Complementive Hermeneutic. What they do with this is they say that God When God revealed truth in the Old Testament, that was all fine and good. But when we come to the New Testament, God's revealed new truth. And the new truth changes what God gave in the Old Testament. And they call that the complimentary Hebrew reading. Well, that's horrible. But that's really what's taught. And that helps them explain away some of these other issues. This is a good slide which shows the the different people groups, the Gentiles, Israel, and the Church. And if you, we're about out of time, I'll just, go there with me if you want, I'm going to read it real quick.

1 Corinthians 10, 32. Here Paul mentions, Paul says, give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God. So there you see Paul recognizing three different people groups. Gentiles, Israel, and the Church. And lastly, to close, turn with me to your Bibles, or look on the screen to Ephesians chapter 2. I'm going to go on my Bible because I want to read a couple verses past 13. In Ephesians 2, 11-13, we see these three groups. The Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church. And it's important to recognize these three.

Starting in verse 11, Paul says, again, he's writing to the Ephesians. Therefore, remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, so there we see the Gentiles, who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, so there we see the Jews. circumcision which is performed in the flesh by human hands, remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."

What we see is that the Gentiles and the Jews were both brought near and made into one new body, the Church. And I'll just read a couple more verses. 14 For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one. So there, he made both groups, the Gentiles and the Jews, into one. And broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in himself Christ, He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace.

It goes on, but we'll stop there. Let's pray. Lord, thanks for again letting us study, and we ask that you'll continue to teach us and equip us to rightly understand your Word, to study it, and to share it with others. And thank you for your grace which You've placed us under. Thank You that our salvation, which includes our forgiveness, which includes our present spiritual growth and our future, we thank You that that's all of Your grace. And we're trusting You. In Jesus' name, amen.