You might not believe me, but I really try in my preaching to avoid using overly technical jargon. You probably won’t hear me call out a “participle of attendant circumstance” in the syntax of the gospel of Matthew or explore the merits of “compatibilism” or “middle knowledge” when discussing God’s will in a Sunday morning sermon.

However, there are some concepts that might sound a little egg-headed but are nevertheless good for you to know something about. One of those concepts is a system of thought known as dispensationalism. That’s six syllables (!) so it might sound more complicated than it actually is.

Dispensationalism is both a method for interpreting Bible texts and a strategy for fitting the Bible together into a unified whole. It gets its name from the epochs or periods of time described throughout Scripture (“dispensation”) characterized by a new arrangement between God and humans (such as the change that took place immediately after the Flood). Dispensationalists emphasize the literal interpretation of the Bible and emphasize a clear and lasting distinction between Israel and the Church.

As best I can tell, it started with the teachings of a minister named John Nelson Darby in the 1830s and was popularized by a wealthy layman named Cyrus Scofield, as well as the famous evangelist D. L. Moody. Part of what ignited its popularity was the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early 20th century. During that time, the modernists were calling into question the truth and authority of the Bible. They were re-interpreting key doctrines such as the atonement and the new birth. Meanwhile, their fundamentalist opponents insisted that there were fundamental truths that Christians must embrace, else the gospel be lost forever. One of those fundamentals was the inspiration of Scripture.

Dispensationalists took Scripture very seriously. They emphasized the literal interpretation of the text. Most Christians took this as common sense: The Bible means what it says, period. When you read a promise in the Old Testament and that promise is directed toward the physical descendants of Israel, then that’s that! Simple, plain, straightforward.

The problem is in the details, of course. What does it mean to interpret a passage literally? Is it always intended literally? What about figurative speech? Also, what about the presence of mystery like Paul mentions in Ephesians 3, namely, revelation not previously understood but unlocked through the ministry of the Holy Spirit after the coming of Christ?

While early dispensationalists developed some strange ideas, subsequent generations made impressive modifications to the tenets of dispensationalism. A generation or two ago, some of the most influential (and faithful) theologians in the United States were proponents of dispensationalism. It’s no surprise, then, that most American evangelicals have been discipled under the influence of dispensational theology (whether they realize it or not).

Without diving too deep into politics, this is a huge reason why many American Christians believe that the modern nation-state known as “Israel” is the rightful recipient of the promises of God described in the Old Testament.

I myself grew up in a dispensational context and attended a dispensational seminary. I was taught, for example, that when a Jewish state was established in the “Promised Land” of the Bible in the late 1940s, that this confirmed the reliability of dispensationalism beyond any question.

Well, I did have questions, and I began to explore them in my own study of Scripture. I came across passages like the one we’re going to examine this week, Romans 2:28-29. “No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly.” My dispensationalist brothers might say, “Of course! Paul is describing believing Jews, members of the family of Israel who are genuinely saved as opposed to those who are not.” Maybe.

To me it made more sense that when Paul said (for example in 2 Corinthians 1:20) that “all the promises of God find their Yes in him [Christ],” that all those who are “in Him” become recipients of those same promises by virtue of their union with Him. Christ himself is the Seed (“offspring”) of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), and His people are the “Israel of God” (Galatians 5:16). Regardless of your ethnicity, there is no salvation or blessing apart from Jesus Christ.

Paul makes clear in Romans 11 that there will be some kind of revival among ethnic Jews at the end of the age. But each of them must turn to Jesus to be saved. And at the very end, there will be only one people of God living in a New Jerusalem (Notice Revelation 21:9-14, in which the City is described bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel as well as the names of the twelve apostles of the church). On that day, yes, all the promises of God will have been literally fulfilled, and in more ways than even the prophets could have envisioned.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Jake