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RenewingMinds
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Excepted from
Dispensationalism's Development
by James R. Mook, Th.D.
Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology
Capital Bible SeminaryIn the 1950s and 1960s Dispensational teachers came to emphasize the soteriological continuity in God's plan while continuing to emphasize eschatological distinctions between Israel and the Church. Leading teachers of this refinement of Dispensationalism were John F. Walvoord, Alva J. McClain, J. Dwight Pentecost, Charles C. Ryrie, and Stanley D. Toussaint. Their move to refine Dispensational articulation of soteriological continuity emphasized that spiritual salvation would be the same for believers of all dispensations, and the means of this salvation for an individual was faith alone. Because of this explicit emphasis on soteriological continuity, these Dispensationalists asserted that the Church partakes of the spiritual provisions of the Abrahamic Covenant, and allowed for at least some application of the soteriological blessings of the New Covenant in the Church dispensation. [underline and bolding mine]. Therefore they differed from Lewis Sperry Chafer's and their own earlier concept of two New Covenants -- one for Israel and one for the Church. The writings of these refining Dispensationalists evinced some other changes from earlier Dispensationalists. For example, they posited a greater degree of application of the Sermon of the Mount to the Church; noted a synonymous relationship between the phrases, "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God;" lessened the emphasis on the dispensations as means of testing mankind; discontinued speaking of the heavenly vs. earthly distinction between the Church and Israel; and emphasized the eternal kingdom rather than the Millennium as the goal and climax of history. (See Craig A. Blaising, "Development of Dispensationalism by Contemporary Dispensationalists," Bibliotheca Sacra 145 (July-September 1988, pp. 254-80). But these Dispensationalists sought to maintain central tenets of Dispensationalism: 1) literal biblical interpretation in eschatological studies; 2) two distinct eschatological peoples of God (Israel and the Church) with two distinct eschatological hopes (Israel -- restoration to national sovereignty in the promised land under the rule of Messiah; the Church -- living and reigning with Christ in heaven and then on and over all the earth); and 3) fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant only in the Millennium.
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