![]() ![]() After all, in the OT the new covenant is made with the tribes of Israel and Judah (i.e. For dispensationalism to stand, it seems to me that one must make such a distinction. One such distinction that I know that my teachers were taught, but-as far as I know-they did not hold to themselves, was the notion that there are two new covenants one for Israel, the other for the church (although my teachers did not hold this view, their teachers-Ryrie and Walvoord-do). To their credit, none of my teachers made this obvious blunder. Probably the most obvious of these is the distinction made by some traditional dispensationalists between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. On the logic front, there is within dispensationalism a strong tendency (which I believe is endemic to the system) to make distinctions where there are no differences. Suffice it to say that I hold to the Puritan position on the Law.) LOGICAL FALLACIESĪs I just mentioned parenthetically, it was during my seminary years that I was developing a growing lack of confidence in dispensational exegesis and logic. (My intention here is not to focus on the Law/Grace issue, I mention it solely to illustrate my growing distrust of dispensational exegesis. Seeing this discrepancy, I began seriously to question their conclusions in other areas as well. Viewed from the OT itself, the Mosaic Law took on contours that were clearly out of sync with descriptions given by systematic theologians and NT scholars committed to dispensationalism. There, in my OT courses (I was an OT major) I learned a more covenantal approach to the Mosaic Law. Things developed further while in seminary. Rereading the book a few years later, I found Hoekema's brief explanation of the book of Revelation to be quite helpful in sorting things out. Ladd's and Hoekema's approach to the issues involved seemed more exegetically compelling than either Hoyt's presentation or other material I had read from a dispensational perspective. Although I didn't follow through with it at the time, I must admit that this book created a bit of doubt about the dispensational position. Later in my college years, in a class on eschatology, The Meaning of The Millennium edited by Clouse was required reading. In doing so I was immediately confronted with some concepts I had never heard of before the "covenant of works" and the "covenant of grace." What Berkhof said about these covenants appeared biblical and did not seem contradictory to dispensational theology, even though further reading for other classes gave the appearance that covenant theology is a theological imposition on the Bible, rather than being a biblical concept. We were required to read some material from Berkhof's Systematic Theology on soteriology. It had its roots, however, in the first semester of my first year in college. The shift in my position came about slowly over a period of several years. If this is what the Bible (literally interpreted) means then of course this is what is true. Therefore I was taught that by maintaining a strict distinction between Israel and the Church one would reject covenant theology and embrace dispensationalism and its premillennial/pretribulational eschatology.Īt the time, it seemed to make sense and so I readily embraced what they taught me. ![]() PART ONE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF THE SHIFT IN MY THINKINGĪs many readers of this paper will know, both the college and seminary I attended were dispensational schools of the Charles Ryrie variety (i.e., revised dispensationalism in the traditional-revised-progressive continuum identified by Blaising and Bock). To help make up for the deficiencies of my treatment here, I have included a short list of books and articles at the end of this paper that I either refer to in the text or that I recommend for further reading. Rather, it is more along the lines of a personal recollection and reflection. As you will soon notice, this is not a detailed exegetical and theological treatment of the issues I address. Since I anticipate questions on this from friends who have known me in the past, I thought I would write up some brief (and somewhat rambling and overlapping) comments that will primarily describe the process by which my thinking shifted, and very briefly (and only partially) defend what I consider to be the biblical teaching. My Shift to Covenant Theology and Amillennialism David L. ![]()
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