DISPENSATIONAL SALVATIONS
Miles J. Stanford
24 January 1994
Dr. Ramesh P. Richard
Dallas Theological Seminary
3909 Swiss Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75204
Dear Dr. Richard
Your scholarly and comprehensive material in the current January/March issue of Bibliotheca Sacra (pp. 85-108) is appreciated, being the condensation of a chapter from your forthcoming Moody Press book, Soteriological Inclusivism and Dispensationalism.
I note that you are a DTS graduate and have been a faculty member there for the past eight years, presently holding the honored and highly responsible position of Professor of Pastoral Ministries and World Missions.
It is quite evident that you have been carrying out the dual aspects of your position in a very practical manner, what with your book, and more recently your evangelistic tour in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, out there in the Bay of Bengal. You probably even took some of your students with you.
Just from this portion of your book it is obvious that you have effectively dealt with the present trend of inclusivistic salvation, specifically promulgated by Dr. Clark H. Pinnock, in his A Wideness in God's Mercy: the Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Zondervan 1992), and Dr. John Sanders in his No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Eerdmans 1992).
In your note on page 20 of Bib Sac you mention that "... dispensationalists have not emphasized the uniqueness of the content of faith [emphasis mine] in the dispensations. The inclusivist issue presently compels this emphasis to be brought forward." Hence your book.
The concern seems to center in the "content of faith." You quote Dr. Ryrie's well-known statement: "The basis of salvation in every age is the death of Christ; the requirement of salvation in every age is faith; the object of faith in every age is God; the content of faith changes in the various dispensations" (Dispensationalism Today, p. 123).
As to this content of faith, the inclusivists maintain that people are saved by faith, not by the content of their theology--that it is not necessary to understand the work of Christ in order to be saved. Covenant theology insists that OT saints had enough incipient knowledge about Christ to be saved. As for Dispensationalism, Dr. Ryrie said that the content of faith changes in the various dispensations, making salvation possible for those who exercise faith.
Therefore your "critical question" is:
Can the quality, reality, and vitality of Old Testament salvation be affirmed to be as valid as New Testament salvation in the face of the lack of knowledge of Christ in the Old Testament, while at the same time preserving the New Testament necessity of explicit knowledge and trust of Christ for eternal salvation (p. 88)?
There are some thoughts concerning this important question, Dr. Richard, that I would like to share with you if I may. Frank Garafola said that "the difference between a smart man and a wise man is that the smart man knows what to say, but the wise man knows whether or not to say it. Not being very smart or very wise, I am going to say it ... now.
At the outset, I would suggest that, for a dispensationalist it is best not to refer to the difference between the OT and NT, as such. Much of the NT is OT: all is OT to Matthew 27, Mark 15, and Luke 23. Church truth, the new, is totally different from Judaistic truth, the old; and it was not fully revealed until after the Cross, via Paul.
OT salvation has nothing to do with Church salvation; they are two different spheres. And there is no need to "preserve the NT [Church] necessity of explicit knowledge and trust of Christ for eternal salvation" except for the Christian, and that only during the Church dispensation.
Other dispensations do not require the same content of faith that is necessary for Church salvation. What was required was commensurate to the salvation involved at the time. Of course whatever faith content God supplies, all in every age is based upon the Cross.
As for OT pre-Israel Gentiles, those who exercised faith in whatever truth God presented during their dispensation were saved. What little there may have been, and far removed from present-day Church requirements as it was, it was adequate for what they received--they will have a place in the Messianic Kingdom, and beyond.
When it came to OT Israel, all the way up to Pentecost, their content of faith required was adequate for their Kingdom regeneration--a salvation as far removed from that of the Church as earth is from heaven.
When it comes to the present-day billions throughout the world who have never yet heard the Gospel, we know that, still being in Adam, they are lost. And we know that the only content of faith in this dispensation is the Gospel of the grace of God in Christ--entrance into the Church.
We also know that God is using the Church, in spite of much failure on her part, to evangelize the lost of the world, and by means of that evangel to call out from among the lost each and every elect member of the Body of Christ. There will not be one individual of His heavenly Bride missing at the time of the Rapture and the completion of His Body, which is the Church.
If our Lord were to appear today with His rapturous shout for the Church, what of the unevangelized masses left behind? They will enter the Tribulation and at the end of those seven terrible years, those who remain, both Jews and Gentiles, will face the King. The Jews will see Him whom they had pierced, will repent and believe, and then the nation will be born in a day--into the Kingdom. For them it will be faith by sight, so to speak--but that content of faith will be adequate for their eternal Kingdom salvation.
As for what remains of the Gentile nations of the earth, they will pass before the King to be separated as sheep from goats. The sheep, on His right hand, will be those whose content of faith was, evidently, to assist the Jews during their Tribulation tribulations--and they will enter the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The goats, on His left hand, who failed to assist Israel, will be assigned to everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
The key to Pauline Dispensationalism is the complete separation between Israel and the Church--they are two different entities. Scripture makes it very clear as to the content of Israel's future New Covenant Kingdom salvation, with their iniquities cleansed, a new heart of flesh, the Spirit indwelling and enabling them to walk in the theocratic law written upon their hearts, living in the Millennial Kingdom in the land of their fathers, under the rule of the King.
Dispensationalists are all too aware of these New Covenant, Israelite blessings, to the extent of seeking to appropriate those "spiritual" blessings unto the Church--the primary breakdown of separation of Israel and the Church.
Why should a Christian--especially a dispensationalist who knows who and where he is in Christ--descend from his heavenly, Christ-centered position in the presence of the Father and grasp anything that belongs exclusively to future Israel? He is crucified, dead, buried, and ascended with Christ in the heavenlies, a citizen of heaven, and is already blessed with all spiritual blessings in those heavenly places in Christ.
Being in union with the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ, the believer's life is hidden with Him in God--he has been made nigh by the Blood of Christ. When He returns to earth to establish His millennial Kingdom, to both judge Israel with the baptism of fire, and afterwards bless them via their New Covenant, every risen and glorified member of the Body of Christ, His Bride, will attend the Bridegroom/King to rule with Him forever over the earth.
All of this and more is for the Church, none of which will ever be true of the recipients of Jesus' Kingdom Gospel--the Kingdom Jew. Different content of faith, different salvations resulting--but all based upon the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant; both eternal, and each different from the other. The heavenly Church needs to realize her unique positional peculiarity, her life in the glorified Lord Jesus Christ--in complete contrast to Israel and Kingdom salvation.
It is evident, Dr. Richard, that you do not regard the Church as a parenthesis in the progression of Israel's redemption history. You mention that "the present writer does not hold to the parenthetical (an interruption in the flow of God's overall plan and purpose--an after-thought view) identity of the church..." (p. 97), which is a sad blow to the Church's distinctiveness.
On page 93 you state that "the phrase 'progressive revelation' should be replaced with a more appropriate one. This writer suggests 'incremental revelation.'" Whatever the progression and its designation, it should be made clear that the Church is not part of OT revelation, progressive or otherwise. Her "hidden in God" mystery revelation was abruptly revealed through Paul:
"Now to Him that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel [I Cor. 15:3,4], and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret [Israel's New Covenant was well known from the eighth century B.C.] since the world began" (Rom. 16:25).
"I make known to you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached by me is not after man. For I neither received it of man [progressively], neither was I taught it [by Jeremiah or Ezekiel], but by the revelation of Jesus Christ [glorified]" (Gal. 1:11,12).
I was surprised and disappointed by your inclusivistic statement on page 105:
But New Testament salvation promises an eternal, ultimate, and other-worldly salvation. It refuses to give eternity second place to an earthly millennium, though the saved of all ages will enjoy the benefits of an earthly resolution of history and an eternal consummation of all things under Christ in a permanent conjoining of identities and destinies.
Surely you would not attempt to "conjoin the identities" of earthly Israel with His heavenly Bride! God has always kept Israel a separate nation. And as for the Church, there is only one Church-fostering Pentecost; thereafter none are Spirit-baptized into the Rapture-completed Body of Christ! Touch the Church to Israel at any point, past, present, or future, and you have violated the rightly-divided Word of truth and its Pauline dispensationalism.
The Church, dear brother, by the very nature of her new-creation being, of His flesh and bones, one spirit with Him, will eternally be uniquely exclusive. "[He] hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through [in] Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6,7).
As the founder of your school made very explicit:
With the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the descent of the Spirit, the door of Gospel privilege was opened unto Gentiles (Acts 10:45; 11:17,18; 13:47,48), and out of them God is now calling an elect company (Acts 15:14).
Their new proffered blessings in this dispensation do not consist in being permitted to share in Israel's earthly covenants, which even Israel is not now enjoying; but rather, through riches of grace in Christ Jesus, they are privileged to be partakers of a heavenly citizenship and glory. --Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer (Systematic Theology IV:5).
The Lord has graciously given you a dual opportunity, Dr. Richard. Your Pastoral Ministries enables you to share with the Church her Life in Christ glorified; and your World Missions enables you to share with the lost the Saviour in Christ crucified.
Resting in Him,
Miles
