Tag: Dispensationalism

Pre-Darby Pretribulationism: A Historical Survey

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“What is clear from all the recent work on the history of eschatology and millennialism is that John Nelson Darby did not create the dispensational system out of whole cloth by himself in the nineteenth century. Certain elements of that system pre-dated Darby. Prior to Darby, those elements existed in various non-dispensationalist theological systems. The division of history into eras pre-dated Darby in non-dispensationalist systems. Premillennialism pre-dated Darby in non-dispensationalist systems. Philosemitism pre-dated Darby in non-dispensationalist systems. There were tributaries that fed into the larger stream that became dispensationalism. In the nineteenth century, Darby and others took these already existing ideas, added a few of their own, and put them together in an altogether new way. They built a unique new house.”
— Keith Mathison, https://www.keithmathison.org/post/dispensationalism-before-darby

Did dispensational pretribulationism exist before Darby? Absolutely—at least in its “proto” stages. I’ve put together a list of key resources that track pretribulationism prior to Darby’s time. The common claim that Darby either stole the idea from Margaret MacDonald or invented it out of thin air is simply a myth.

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Ezekiel’s Temple and the New Covenant

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Featured Blog: Selwin Christian

Today’s featured blog article was written by Selwin Christian back in April 2025 called Ezekiel’s Temple Sacrifices and the New Covenant. The article was written as a research paper for The Master’s Seminary.

I am thankful for Selwin and his continued to desire to study and grow in God’s Word. I pray that his work is an encouragement to study more seriously Ezekiel 40-48 and recognize how it comports with New Covenant realities.

Taken from the Introduction:

One of the hotly debated topics in the eschatological conundrum is to find the exact nature of Ezekiel’s temple sacrifices in the light of the New Covenant. Scripture must be read in its normal, plain sense unless the text demands some kind of symbolism. But those with allegorical hermeneutics reject the plain and literal view of the temple and hence find it utterly impossible to consider future sacrifices to be literal in the light of Christ and His finished work. We meet with the dilemma, how to exactly interpret Ezekiel’s temple and sacrifices. Those who apply allegorical sense, approach the meaning through the lens of the New Testament and try to read the New Testament into the Old Testament. We will first analyze the New Testament Priority hermeneutics. This paper will argue that the New testament priority hermeneutics disregards the basic details of the text for the Ezekiel’s temple sacrifices and misreads the authorial intent, though the later revelation is important, as far as the New Covenant is concerned the exegetical answer is found in the Old Testament itself without contradiction.

Click to access selwin_ezekiels-temple-and-new-covenant.pdf

10 Reasons for a “Gap” in Daniel’s 70 Weeks

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It is often assumed that dispensationalists invented the idea of a gap in Daniel’s seventy weeks in order to support their eschatological system. In reality, dispensational and non-dispensational interpreters have substantial textual and historical reasons for rejecting the view that the seventieth week was fulfilled by AD 40. The following are some of the strongest arguments supporting a gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks.

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Abraham’s Four Seeds: The Key Many Systems Overlook

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Excellent work has been done in identifying the fourfold sense of Abraham’s seed. I first encountered this framework in John G. Reisinger’s book Abraham’s Four Seeds: A Biblical Examination of the Presuppositions of Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism (1998), which was extremely helpful in clarifying how Scripture speaks of the various “seeds” of Abraham. The concept was later further developed by Stephen J. Wellum and Peter J. Gentry in Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants (2012). Dispensational scholars have also made use of similar categories; for example, see Michael Riccardi’s study, The Seed of Abraham: A Theological Analysis of Galatians 3 and Its Implications for Israel, Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Israelology: The Missing Link in Systematic Theology (2001) and John S. Feinberg in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments (1988).

I likewise find the fourfold distinction of Abraham’s seed to be a helpful framework for bringing together the full biblical data on this important subject. My primary disagreement with Reisinger, Wellum, and Gentry, however, is that their redemptive-historical model tends to downplay two of the four seeds, despite the significant emphasis Scripture itself places upon them. When a theological model highlights one element within a predefined interpretive framework, it often results—intentionally or not—in the marginalization of elements that do not fit neatly within that framework.

Dispensationalists, by contrast, have sought to account for the totality of the biblical witness without minimizing particular strands of revelation due to prior theological commitments.

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Future Sacrifices and the Once-for-All Cross: Harmonizing Ezekiel and Hebrews

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Let’s talk Ezekiel 40-48!

After years of dialogue with non-dispensationalists over this passage, I have repeatedly encountered the same interpretive problems surrounding these nine chapters of Scripture. At the core of many of these disagreements is what has been termed a “New Testament Priority Presupposition.” This approach grants the New Testament interpretive primacy when reading the Bible, often described as viewing the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament. In this case the book of Hebrews is given interpretive priority over Ezekiel and is used to interpret the book of Ezekiel.

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The New Covenant – Spiritual & Physical Dimensions

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The New Covenant (NC) is far more comprehensive than we often acknowledge. If one reduces the NC merely to the spiritual blessings the church enjoys in Christ, while neglecting its physical and national dimensions, the result is an essentially Platonic reading of the promises. What is needed is a balanced and objective assessment that gives full weight to all relevant biblical data. Moreover, a strictly redemptive-historical hermeneutic can create additional tension, as it often tends to emphasize the spiritual aspects of the covenant while minimizing or reinterpreting its physical and territorial components.

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Romans 9:1-13 – A Calvinistic Dispensational Defence

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It is often argued that Calvinism and Dispensationalism are incompatible in passages such as Romans 9:1–13, and that only Calvinistic Covenant Theology can adequately account for Paul’s argument. I contend, however, that the real tension lies not between Calvinism and Dispensationalism, but between both Arminian Dispensationalism and Calvinistic Covenant Theology.

An Arminian view of conditional individual or corporate salvific election sits uneasily alongside a dispensational commitment to God’s unconditional election of Israel. Dispensationalism rightly affirms a twofold election grounded in God’s unilateral promises. For that reason, only Calvinistic Dispensationalism maintains internal consistency.

Why? Because Calvinistic Dispensationalists understand Romans 9 to uphold the unconditional covenant God established with Abraham and Israel, together with the unconditional blessings that flow from God’s sovereign election of individuals. By contrast, Covenant Theology typically maintains that Israel, as a distinct covenant people, has been set aside and that the promises have been transferred to the Church.

Arminian Dispensationalists affirm that Israel remains bound to an unconditional covenant and that the promises have not been given to the Church. Yet they inconsistently deny that the same passage teaches unconditional election at the individual level.

Calvinistic Dispensationalists, however, affirm both realities: Israel remains the recipient of God’s unconditional covenant promises, and God sovereignly and unilaterally chooses individuals for salvation.

The purpose of this document is to defend the coherence and validity of these claims.

Click to access romans-9.1-13-a-calvinistic-dispensational-defence.pdf

Proposed Perspectives For Dispensational Theology

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At the outset, it should be acknowledged that it is nearly impossible to capture every variation within dispensational theology with precision. Any attempt at classification will inevitably invite calls for further nuance or other forms of categorizations. With that said, my aim here has been to be both fair and faithful to the ongoing discussion, while also attempting to introduce greater clarity where I believe some ambiguity has persisted.

The primary motivation for constructing this table is personal. I have found the existing categorizations of dispensationalism increasingly overwhelming and, at times, unclear. Most of the current framing has been reduced to a discussion between traditional vs. progressive dispensationalism. While there are many overlapping components among the various positions, there are also crucial theological and hermeneutical distinctions that are frequently flattened or obscured by broad labels.

For well over a decade I have called myself a “revised/progressive” dispensationalist, however, over time I have found that language to be too ambiguous to be genuinely helpful. What I have been seeking is a way to identify a theological “sweet spot” between what is commonly called traditional (or revised, using Blaising’s earlier terminology) dispensationalism and what is now more fully developed as progressive dispensationalism.

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Replacement Theology Isn’t a Dispensational Myth

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Did Dispensationalists Coin the Term “Replacement Theology”?

Dispensationalists have often been accused of inventing the word “replacement theology” or “supersessionism” as a slur against covenantalists in an attempt to undercut their views on Israel & the Church—which they claim is the historic view of the church.

Based upon my research, A. Roy Eckardt seems to be the one who coined/popularized the term “supersessionism” in his article “Christian Perspectives on Israel” published in Midstream in 1972.

“The term supersessionism itself was coined in a 1972 article “Christian Perspectives on Israel,” by Protestant theologian and scholar of Jewish-Christian relations A. Roy Eckardt. The article was published in Midstream, an avowedly Zionist publication issued by the Theodore Herzl Foundation. Eckardt and his wife, Alice L. Eckhardt, were stalwart supporters of the Israeli government, and they blamed antisemitism for what they saw as Christians’ deficient support of Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. In the years that followed, official rejections of replacement theology, by denominational leaders, were often accompanied by statements of support for Israel.”1

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