Dispensationalism or Covenant Theology? | AMA

So Hal Lindsey wrote a book in the late 70s called The Late Great Planet Earth and it basically just it tried to explain how the world was going to come to an end and revelation was going to be fulfilled.

That's how my parents got saved. I would say fear was all wrapped up in that. Now, of course, if you were alive back then, which

I was, 1988 came and went and the only interesting thing that happened was Rafael Fabri, Nate, do you subscribe to covenant theology or dispensationalism?

So we're just going light, guys. We're just doing the light questions. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. 10k subs.

We're just doing it very light. Thank you. Dispensationalism is what

I grew up in. My parents got saved because of Hal Lindsey. So if any of you know who

Hal Lindsey is, right? The Late Great Planet Earth. If you know, you know. My parents grew up in that sort of environment.

There was a lot of, in the pre -millennial dispensational, you know, slash

Protestant -style camp, which by the way, that is still probably, pre -millennial dispensationalism is still probably the most popular interpretation of revelation to date.

I think it still is in this country, although I could be wrong. Maybe it's shifting, but, you know, in the 70s,

I mean, it was definitely a force to be reckoned with. The idea that revelation essentially is all for the future, that Daniel 9 somehow incorporates the

Antichrist in the prophetic passages of the 77s, and Hal Lindsey had written a book called

The Late Great Planet Earth where essentially he makes some prophetic speculations that because of the

Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, where Jesus talks about, you know, he famously, he goes to his disciples and he says, hey, the temple's going to be destroyed.

And then they ask him, well, when will these things be and when will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

Jesus' answer to that question is really about some kind of, again, an event that's going to take place in our future.

It has nothing to do with certainly the disciples who were alive who had asked

Jesus this specific question. He was not talking to them. And so, Hal Lindsey recognizes that when

Jesus says in the Olivet Discourse, these things will happen to this generation, and then he sort of grabs the biblical idea of a generation being 40 years, and then he, in his calculatings, and this gets complex, but then he looks at the formation of Israel back in 1940, is it 8?

You know, coming out of World War II and Israel becoming a nation again. Well, then Hal Lindsey's doing the math.

So, he's like, one generation till the end, okay. 1948 plus 40 years is 1988. So, Hal Lindsey wrote a book in the late 70s called

The Late Great Planet Earth, and it basically, it tried to explain how the world was going to come to an end and Revelation was going to be fulfilled in the year 1988.

Now, he doesn't come out and say the year, but he certainly implies quite heavily that it's 40 years from 48, so we can all do the math, right?

That's how my parents got saved. I would say fear was all wrapped up in that.

Now, of course, if you were alive back then, which I was, 1988 came and went, and the only interesting thing that happened was

Die Hard came out. No rapture, no end times,

Die Hard came out. So, dispensationalism is, basically, the point of that is I grew up in that environment.

I no longer hold to dispensationalism. Covenant theology, though, boy, that's a whole conversation.

I will say this, Raphael, and by the way, greetings from Brazil. God interacts with his people covenantally.

There is no doubt about it. I don't think anybody can argue that. God enacts covenants with the people that he wants to partner with.

What is a covenant? It's an agreement. Marriage is a covenant, right? So, in the same way that a husband partners with a wife,

God wants to partner with people in order to do what? To enact the redemption of the world that he has made.

Even before things went bad, he had covenanted with Adam, he had covenanted with Noah, he had covenanted – you can track, there's, like, all kinds of covenants throughout the

Bible, and so, the style through which God sort of interacts with people that he wants to partner with is through covenant.

It's all over the place. So, I would lean more covenant theology than I would dispensationalism, but I think

I'll leave it there. So, because then we're going to start talking about replacement theology, which

I'm not a proponent of, and we're going to get lost in the weeds on this, but there is a really great book that I would recommend to you,

Raphael. I would highly recommend – actually, let me give you two books, and I don't want to misspeak, so let me open up my

Kindle really super quick and tell you. So, the first one is Kingdom Through Covenant, and that is by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellam.

That is a really great book that I think that you should take a look at. Kingdom Through Covenant.

And then the other one, Raphael, is The Mystery of Christ by Samuel Renahan, which is probably going to make the straight out, like, flat out covenant theology case very clearly.

So, and then take a look and maybe we can talk about this again at some point. All right.