A ditty on Dispensationalism
Some of my experience and definitive Scriptural debunking of Christian Zionism
I’ve been pretty inactive on the stack for a while, so I’m going to write some shorter articles as I’ve been getting bogged down in the long ones. I have some major articles coming but I’ll do a few short topical notes in-between.
I was conversing with a fellow in my DM’s who was asking me what I thought and experienced in hyper-dispensational theology, and ended up writing an essay, this essay.
I attended a little hyper-dispensational church for nearly a year and studied the ins-and-outs of the theology. It was a rather unique group and refreshing in a number of ways that other churches just aren't: they were scientifically-minded, activist against tyranny and abortion, open-minded to a number of interesting topics yielding great discussions, such as about the Nephilim. It was a very intelligent group, but also fraught with sin issues that they covered up. As is usually the case with small family churches, it was a 2-tiered mafia system of the “in” crowd and the rest. Still better than most churches though.
I saw such a variety in end-times beliefs in the circles I met from that church. The pastor's position was actually kind of hard to determine. I'm not sure if he was thinking "rapture imminent" or was more like a preterist. He did teach the Bible in such a way that Revelations were fulfilled and his brand was unique because he also incorporated “open theism”. Never heard that before or since that church, but his position was that God 'repented' or changed his mind, which is why the new testament is replete with phrases like "it shall come shortly". His teaching was that the second coming was supposed to take place in the lifetime of the apostles, but God changed his mind and we're onto a new plan that isn't shown anywhere in Scripture. So his was a pretty weird brand, I think he was probably a preterist or partial preterist but also hyper-dispensational, he called it "mid acts dispensationalism" because he pointed to a particular verse in Acts and said, "That's the division!" All that was left of Scripture for the christian was Paul’s epistles after a certain point in Acts, Acts 7 maybe but I forget now. The Gospels didn’t even necessarily apply directly to Christians, it was a bizarre way of looking at Scripture and, ironically, Paul’s epistles are actually what debunk this view.
Matthew 27:50-53,
"Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."
The veil torn was between the holy place and the holy of holies, it was a veil of separation which gentiles were forbidden under pain of death from crossing. Also read Romans 11 on the gentiles being grafted in.
Ephesians 2:11-14,
"Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;"
Also read Ephesians 3, it lays it out very clearly that we are one body, and this is the mystery of the Gospel: how God planned all along to make all men, jew and gentile alike, a part of his Kingdom through Christ.
So the entire premise of Dispensationalism is woefully mistaken and taken from a very careful cherry-picking of Scripture thanks to Darby (an occultist) and Scofield (a con man). Zionism in all its forms is antichrist, and Dispensationalism has become the basis of Christian Zionism today. Rapture + Zionism is essentially what Dispensationalism is, and it has quietly crept into many denominations that don't consider themselves Dispensational. Most christians have never even heard the term before. As for hyper-dispensationalism, it gets pretty weird and niche and I don't think there's all that much consensus between different groups there. That’s when you really go down the rabbit hole of specific theologies and discover there’s 1,000 different versions of what you thought was a specific concept.
I don't like when somebody tells me to ignore 95% of Scripture cuz God's kingdom is apartheid like modern Israel...
Here’s a good article dissecting Dispensationalism over time
Shalom
Nice ditty. Don’t have time for all the rabbit holes any more. “Rightly dividing” in itself seems to have gone cancerous. Writin your own bible [ a book without words ]