Dispensationalism and Covenantal Theology (Part 3)

Praise to the Sovereign King, hear, hear his people sing, solely and wholly saving his own bride. There where the Lamb has died, hard died the blood of that great high priest.

Hi there, welcome to Reformed Ex Mormon. I'm Pastor Brayden, and I hope you're having a wonderful and blessed day today. Today we are going on part three of our multi-parted series on the topic of eschatology, and the subject that we're gonna be discussing today is dispensationalism and covenantal theology.

And we are only gonna be scratching the very surface of these things. And so I would hope that you would use this video as a means of starting and jumping off from and diving solely into the Word of God alone as your authoritative text to come to your own conclusions on these subjects.

The History and Basic Definition of Dispensationalism

And so we will begin with defining dispensationalism and just giving a little bit of history of this theological thought. Now, to first speak of its history is that dispensationalism, premillennialism is the new kid on the block when it comes to eschatology as it was founded and came up with in the 1800s or at least recognized within the 1800s.

And it was really made famous by the Schofield Study Bible, the Ryrie Study Bible, as well as the Left Behind series that has made it so every non-Christian of today in fact knows dispensationalism, premillennialism as an eschatology.

They just automatically assume that when they are not a Christian because they know of this eschatology and they know it better than the incarnation of Christ himself. So there's that. And therefore it's a very popular view of today as well as the declaration of Israel of being a state in 1948.

When that took place, that really highlighted dispensationalism even more as they saw it as prophetic fulfillment of today. Some people that would hold to this, as mentioned Schofield, Ryrie, Chuck Smith holds to this, John Vernon McGee, especially in his commentary, going through the Bible in five years, talks much about dispensational premillennialism as well as individuals like John MacArthur hold to dispensational premillennialism.

Now there are giants of the faith on both sides of this coin on dispensationalism and covenantal theology. Just to be very clear, there are people that I hold in high esteem on both sides of these things.

But to define dispensational premillennialism in a quick short summation, I'm gonna use karm .org, Christian Apologetics Research Ministry and their dictionary definition of terms.

It says this,.

Dispensationalism is an approach to biblical interpretation which states that God uses different means of administrating his will to people during different periods of history. Usually seven chronologically successive periods, it attempts a literal interpretation of scripture with a premillennial and pre-tribulation rapture view.

It sees Israel and the church as distinct bodies. Now in that last sentence, it says that it sees Israel and the church as distinct bodies. I wanna read a quote from a dispensational proponent and that gentleman's name is Daniel Fuller.

He says this,.

The basic premise of dispensationalism is two purposes of God expressed in the formation of two peoples who maintain their distinction throughout eternity. Now within dispensationalism, there's seven dispensations that are commonly held to.

And we're gonna discuss the sixth dispensation a little bit more thoroughly in a second. And that is where we would see that distinction taking place between Israel and the church. But those seven dispensations are the dispensation of innocence, which is seen in Genesis chapter one to three.

Genesis chapter three to eight would have the dispensation of conscience followed by the dispensation of civil government in Genesis nine to 11. The dispensation of promise in Genesis chapter 12 through Exodus 19.

The dispensation of law from Exodus chapter 20 to Acts chapter two, verse four. The dispensation of grace, which is Acts chapter two, verse four through Revelation chapter 20, verse three. And then the final dispensation of the millennial kingdom, which is Revelation chapter 20, verses four through six.

And just a quick rundown of those things. A dispensationalist would say that one is saved through grace, through faith in Jesus or in Yahweh in all dispensations. So that would be all the way from Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation that people are saved the exact same way.

Somebody that holds to covenantal theology would say the exact same thing. We're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. And that is according to the scriptures alone for those things. But what we would see in here is that the dispensation of grace, also known as the church age, or the great gap, or the great parentheses, it came about as through the Old Testament, God has been promising certain things to the people of Israel, ethnic Jews.

And that since he's been promising these things, namely from Genesis chapter 12, verses one through three, where they are promised land and that they are promised to be a nation that other nations look to for blessing, that these things are physical.

They would also look at Genesis chapter 15 in verse five and six, where it says that Abraham walks out, sees the stars, and that he has promised that his descendants will be innumerable such as the stars.

And so also, they would also say that in these dispensations of the Old Testament, Israel's also promised a messianic kingdom. Where the Messiah will sit literally and physically upon David's throne here on earth.

And they would look at Isaiah chapter nine, verse six for this, as well as 2 Samuel chapter seven, verses 12 through 13, as chapter 20, verse five, and 1 Chronicles chapter 17, verses 10 through 14. And so they would say, we have to have the Messiah sitting upon the throne of David for this to be fulfilled.

And so they would say that according to chapter nine of Isaiah, it says that a son will be given to us. They would say that this has taken place, that the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. But they would say that in John chapter one, verses 10 through 18, it says that he comes unto his own and his own did not receive him.

In John chapter 19, they say, away with him, away with him, crucify him, crucify him. These are the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham that are saying this. And it is because of those things that therefore there is a gap between then till whenever the millennial kingdom starts.

And that when that millennial kingdom starts, all those Old Testament prophecies will be fulfilled in that time period. And that right now, that because of Israel rejecting their Messiah, God has given this grace that has been given to the Old Testament Israel, he's now given them to, or given it to the Gentiles, the church of today.

And so therefore they see Israel and the church as being two completely distinct, different things. I would also turn to Romans chapter 11, verses, let me turn here, verse 25 through verse 27 for some additional comment on how the dispensational premillennialist views Israel and the church as being two distinctive bodies.

Verse 25 says this, for I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel. And I'll pause there and just make note of this.

They would say that that partial hardening of Israel is today, that since they rejected the Christ and those sins that were committed against the Messiah has happened, the partial hardening has taken place.

And then it says in the verse, it says until, so this partial hardening has happened until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. So until the fullness of this church age has taken place, Israel is going to be partially blind.

There's gonna be a partial hardening to the heart of Israel. Verse 26 then says that until, so let me read that again. Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, verse 26, and thus all of Israel will be saved.

Just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So verse 26 says, and thus all Israel will be saved.

A dispensationalist says, you see in here, it says that when the church age is over, that God still has a plan for his chosen people, the daughters of Zion, the sons of Abraham, these terms, these endearing terms, that God still has a plan for his people.

And that is that once the church age is over, the millennial kingdom of Christ will take place where Christ comes again, sits upon his throne, and all those Old Testament prophecies of peace and the government reigning upon his shoulders, all those things will be fulfilled in Christ in the future.

Covenant Theology and the Unity of the Church and Israel

Now, comparing that understanding of dispensationalism and switching over to covenantal theology, let us first begin by maybe discussing some giants of the faith that hold to covenantal theology, just like how we did with dispensationalism.

Some really well-known covenantal theology proponents would be John Calvin, John Owen, A .W. Pink, Jonathan Edwards, R .C. Sproul, amongst many, many more. Covenantal theology often gets misrepresented as believing in what's called replacement theology.

Now, this is not true. Covenantal theology does not believe that the church replaces Israel. Instead, they would say that the church is Israel, that the church has always been seen all the way throughout the Old Testament, even though that we just don't have that title or that term church yet established, but that we've always seen the idea of people believing in God and coming together and worshiping him, that that's something found all the way from the garden till today, and that today, in today's church context, we have the Gentiles engrafted into the true Israel.

Now, for a definition of this, let me just read here from christianapologeticsresearchministry .org again here on the definition of covenantal theology. Covenantal theology is a system of theology that views God's dealings with man in respect of covenants rather than dispensations, periods of time.

It represents the whole of scripture as covenant in structure and in theme, and it then says that there's many different views within covenantal theology, which is true. You can look at the Westminster Confession of Faith and compare that to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, and you can see that there's a couple different nuances between those views of covenants, and we'll talk a little bit more about what that is, but to first begin by reading what somebody would hold to covenantal theology, they would go to Galatians chapter three, verse 15 to 16, and in here it says this.

Verses 15 and 16, it says, brethren, I speak in terms of human relations, even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

It does not say, and to seeds, as referring to many, but to one, and to your seed, that is Christ. Let's also read verses 28 through 29, and I would encourage you to please go home and read the entirety of the context here in Galatians chapter three.

Verse 28 through 29 says this. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And you belong to Christ then, and it says, and if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

And so to first speak of the difference between dispensationalism and covenantal theology, the dispensationalist says that those promises made to Israel are not fulfilled in this church age, but will be fulfilled in the future.

The covenantal theology person says, no, the descendants of Abraham was speaking of the seed being Christ, and we being Gentiles have been engrafted in that there's no distinction between Jew or Gentile, that we are all enemies of God, and that we've been all subdued in Christ as him being the seed of Abraham, and therefore the church, Gentiles, Jews, all believing ones are going to receive or belong to the promise given to Abraham.

And so you might say, well, how is it so that then the Messiah is sitting upon David's throne? According to a covenantal theology person, comparing it to a dispensationalist that says, Christ is coming again to sit upon that throne, a covenantal theology person would say that Christ is sitting upon that throne now.

And they would go to Acts chapter two, verses 29 and on. I'll read these here. It says, brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

And so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him by an oath to seat one of his descendants upon his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Jesus or the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffer decay.

This Jesus God raised again, to which we are all witnesses, therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this, which you both see and hear.

So the covenantal theology person would look at this and say that David's throne was not ever speaking of a physical throne, but it was speaking of God establishing his rule in the heavens. And that when Christ ascended to the Father, he was sat upon the throne and therefore fulfilled that which David spoke of, which is what it says in here, that David spoke of and looked ahead to the resurrection of the Christ as a fulfillment of a descendant sitting upon his own throne.

So where the dispensationalist says that is yet future, the covenantal theology person says that is now current. But they clear, so just another differentiating point of covenantal theology versus dispensationalism is that a covenantal theology person would say that the kingdom that is spoken of in Isaiah chapter nine is a kingdom that is happening now.

They would say that according to Mark 1, 14 through 15, it says that Jesus entered into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, saying that the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.

John 18 verses 36 or 37 says that Jesus says that my kingdom is not of this world, that you have said correctly that I am a king, but my kingdom is not of this realm. Christ is a king, but it's not a kingdom of this world, that his kingdom is a reality that is not bound by walls or borders like we see physically today.

Now, some other very important verses that we would take note of in distinction between the church and Israel, according to a covenantal theology person would be Romans chapter two, verses 28 through 29 that says that one is not a Jew outwardly and nor is circumcision is that which is of the heart.

By the spirit, not by the letter and his praise is not but from men, but from God. So one is not a Jew that is one outwardly, but one is a Jew inwardly and it's speaking, a covenantal theology person would say that is speaking of Gentiles being Jews, that true Israel, true Israel are those that believe in God and therefore they have been regenerated, they have been circumcised of the heart, they have had the removal of the flesh and profess faith in Jesus and therefore they are a part of the seed of Abraham, they are part of Christ being of his body.

Romans chapter nine, just to reiterate this a little bit more in verses six through eight, not 18, verses six through eight it says, but it is not as though the word of God has failed for they are not all Israel who descend from Israel, neither are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but through Isaac your descendant will be named, that is, it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise who are regarded as descendants.

So using that understanding of who Israel is, the covenantal theology person would come to Romans chapter 11 with that kind of a definition and they would say either two different ways of interpreting this.

In verses 25 through 27, we'll just read 25 through 26 here, it says, for I do not want you brethren to be uninformed of this mystery lest you be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and thus all of Israel will be saved.

Some covenantal theology people would say that God is not yet done with ethnic Israel, ethnic Jews, that there will be a future day where many ethnic Jews and ethnic Israel prior to the second coming of Christ will come to faith in Jesus and be a part of the true Israel that the Gentiles are a part of.

That is one way that one could understand this text coming from a covenantal theology perspective. Another way would be that when it says that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, speaking of ethnic Israel, that today there are some Jews that are still coming to faith in Jesus, but the vast majority are still rejecting the same Christ that the Jews 2000 years ago did.

There is no king but Caesar, away with him, away with him, crucify him, that those, that's the same mentality that are upon the ethnic Jews of today. And so therefore there's a partial hardening there.

And then it says that this is until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and thus all Israel will be saved. And so the covenantal theology person says there's two types of people that we see there.

We see some Jews that are actually having faith in Christ that are coming to the fullness of understanding who he is. And then we also see Gentiles who at their coming of a completion, it says that has come in.

So once the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, so there's two different types of people, Jews and Gentiles and that at the fullness of both of those things, all of Israel will be saved. All of true Israel will be saved going back to Romans chapter two and Romans chapter nine, as well as Galatians chapter three, for our definition of what Israel is supposed to be here in Romans 11.

The Covenant of Redemption, Works, and Grace

Now, similarly in dispensationalism, how there's different views of how many dispensations there are. In covenantal theology, there is views about how many covenants there are. But to boil it down as quickly as I can, is that there is thought that there is one main covenant and that is called the covenant of redemption or also known as the eternal covenant that is alluded to in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 20.

And that this eternal covenant or this covenant of redemption was made prior to creation and that it was an agreement or a covenant made between the three persons of the Trinity, that the one and only God covenanted within himself, within his inner Trinitarian working and that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit made this covenant that the Father was going to predestine, the Son was going to redeem, the Holy Spirit would apply that redemptive work into the believer's account, but that God was going to redeem for himself a group of people for his own glory.

And then we would see that this covenant was expanded upon in the garden where the covenant of works was instituted, man couldn't keep it. We see more and more covenants throughout time that are given that are expounding upon that covenant of works, the Noahianic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant and so on.

Man is unable to keep this covenant, these covenants. But likewise in the garden, we also see a covenant of grace that is instituted. After the fall takes place, instead of God striking Adam down right then and there, the only thing that dies in the garden is a sacrifice.

God makes a sacrifice there in the garden and covers Adam with the skin of sacrifice, therefore alluding to the future fulfillment of the covenant of grace, which is also the fulfillment of the covenant of works that in the person of Christ, he was made under the law, was obedient to the law, fulfilled the covenant of works, fulfilled that which man could not.

And thus, because of that, he then fulfilled the covenant of grace that it is through his sacrificial atonement and blood that we are covered today. And so we see that the covenant of redemption is fulfilled in the covenant of works and the covenant of grace that is found in the work of Jesus Christ.

So I hope that just looking at these texts today, discussing the definitions of both dispensationalism and covenantal theology, and seeing that there, like I said, there are giants of the faith on both sides of the coin on this issue.

And I would encourage you today, once again, to please go into the word of God alone as your final authoritative means of understanding this subject and utilize people like myself, commentaries, study tools, pastors, evangelists, and apologists, your friends, your own church itself to help you understand this issue of dispensationalism, comparing it with covenantal theology.

I hope that this video has blessed you. I hope that it helps you. I hope that it edifies you. And I hope it encourages you to go out and tell the whole world of the gospel of God, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God bless and go in peace.