Hyper-Dispensationalism, and even Dispensationalism, to me, seems to be a modern Judaizing of the Church.
Hyper(?)Dispensationalism
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Practically all Ruckmanites teach all non-Pauline New Testament books apply to the Church spiritually but not doctrinally.
Huh? Could you explain this in a little more detail?
Very simply they believe only the Pauline epistles teach that salvation is by faith alone without works because the apostle Paul is the only apostle that was given the gospel of the grace of God. They believe Hebrews through Revelation are an extension of the four Gospels. Just as I pointed out in some of the statements from Lez Feldict's website, "So as we study these little Jewish epistles, they are still all under the Jewish economy. There is almost nothing of the Gospel of Grace we’re living in today. There is nothing in here that pertains to the Body of Christ as such but it’s all a continuation of the four gospel accounts." Peter Ruckman taught that there are three applications which are doctrinal, spiritual and historical. Only the Pauline epistles applied to the Church doctrinally and whatever application one found in the other epistles were strictly spiritual or historical. Just for example, they believe no one was born again in the Old Testament and when Jesus said a man must be born again it didn't mean the same thing as what Paul meant. They believe that David was the only OT saint to have eternal security and use the verses that refer to the "sure mercies of David" as proof texts. Ruckman railed against hyper-Calvinism but he himself was really the face of it. He may have disagreed with Bullinger and Stam on being baptized but there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Ruckaman and those he accused of being hyper. He is very close to Lez Feldick in terms of doctrine.
Huh? Could you explain this in a little more detail?
Very simply they believe only the Pauline epistles teach that salvation is by faith alone without works because the apostle Paul is the only apostle that was given the gospel of the grace of God. They believe Hebrews through Revelation are an extension of the four Gospels. Just as I pointed out in some of the statements from Lez Feldict's website, "So as we study these little Jewish epistles, they are still all under the Jewish economy. There is almost nothing of the Gospel of Grace we’re living in today. There is nothing in here that pertains to the Body of Christ as such but it’s all a continuation of the four gospel accounts." Peter Ruckman taught that there are three applications which are doctrinal, spiritual and historical. Only the Pauline epistles applied to the Church doctrinally and whatever application one found in the other epistles were strictly spiritual or historical. Just for example, they believe no one was born again in the Old Testament and when Jesus said a man must be born again it didn't mean the same thing as what Paul meant. They believe that David was the only OT saint to have eternal security and use the verses that refer to the "sure mercies of David" as proof texts. Ruckman railed against hyper-Calvinism but he himself was really the face of it. He may have disagreed with Bullinger and Stam on being baptized but there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Ruckaman and those he accused of being hyper. He is very close to Lez Feldick in terms of doctrine.
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I respect that but if the Church replaced Israel then one must spiritualize the many unfulfilled promises given to Israel. In Galations 6:16 when Paul uses the term "Israel of God,"
It is used by all covenant theologians to prove that the Church is called Israel. The Book of Galatians is concerned with Gentiles who were attempting to attain salvation through the law. The ones deceiving them were Judaizers, who were Jews demanding adherence to the Law of Moses. To them, a Gentile had to convert to Judaism before he qualified for salvation.
In verse 15 Paul states that the important thing for salvation is faith, resulting in the new man. He then pronounces a blessing on two groups who would follow this rule of salvation by faith alone.
The first group is “them,” the Gentile Christians to whom he had devoted most of the epistle.
The second group is the “Israel of God.” These are Jewish believers who, in contrast with the Judaizers, followed the rule of salvation by faith alone.
Covenant theologians must ignore the primary meaning of the Greek word kai (the conjunction usually translated “and”) which separates the two groups in the verse in order to make them both the same group.
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Are you ignoring the fact that Paul spends around a third of this letter arguing that true Israelites are Abraham's heirs by faith, and Israel after the flesh is the son of the slave woman, not the Son of promise?
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I know we could go round and round and never convince each other but Paul is very clear in Romans 11 that God is not through with the Jews as a nation. I don't see how Paul could be much clearer on that point. Another reason I can't go along with Covenant theology is that the prophecies of the past have always come about literally and I don't believe we should spiritualize those prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled. I believe Jesus Christ will reign 1,000 years on the earth according to Revelation 20 and it isn't symbolical. It looks like R.C. Sproul agrees with John MacArthur.
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RC Sproul makes some interesting statements regarding the future of Israel. I don't think he is (was) actually pre-millennial but he did believe in a future for Israel according to what Paul has stated in Rom 11:25.
He took the standard Preterist view of Mt 24 (70 AD, Destruction of Jerusalem, Etc.) but also agonized over vs. 30 (Christ's return) and the fact that vs. 34 says "this generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled" stating that he cannot resolve this. I have never heard how he factored in the "Parable of the Fig Tree" (vs. 32-33) and I wish he were still around because I'd love to ask him about it!
Of course, the standard dispensational position is that the parable of the fig tree speaks of a future restoration of Israel (Ezk 11:17-19). Many say this was fulfilled in 1948 when Israel became a nation once more and this is where all of the fervor regarding "Late Great Planet Earth" and all the "Left Behind" stuff. It should be obvious, however, that vs. 19 has yet to be fulfilled and Israel of today is a largely secular state. Therefore when does the "This generation" begin? Was it in the time Jesus was speaking? Did it begin when Israel became a nation once again in 1948? or will it happen some time in the future when Israel experiences nationwide revival, embraces Christ as Messiah, and becomes largely regenerate?
I guess I could find RC Sproul up in Heaven one day and ask him but by that time, we will all have a perfect knowledge of eschatology and such things will no longer matter!
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I've struggled with many Bible questions and am grateful for many different commentators I've read on some of these things. Many times I will take notes and put them in my Bible without referencing where I got the thoughts. I'm not writing a thesis for a doctural degree so here are some the notes I have in my Bible. By the way I have written down quite a few notes I got from Ransom and may not remember he is the one I got them from.
The whole context of Matthew 24 is Jewish: the temple (v. 1); their flight on the Sabbath (v. 10); the abomination of desolation (v. 15). The “elect” (v. 22, 24, 31) is Israel (Deut 7:6; Isa 41:8-9). In Isaiah 27:13-13 the whole context is God regathering His people scattered around the world in conjunction with the blowing of the trumpet (Matt 24:31).
In Matthew 24:34 “This generation” cannot refer to the generation living at that time of Christ, for “all these things” – the abomination of desolation (v. 15), the persecutions and judgments (v. 17-22), the false prophets (v. 23-26), the signs in the heavens (v. 27-29), Christ’s final return (v. 30), and the gathering of the elect (v. 31) – did not “take place” in their lifetime. It seems best to interpret Christ’s words as a reference to the generation alive when those final hard labor pains begin. This would fit with the lesson of the fig tree, which stresses the short span of time in which these things will occur. (John MacArthur)
Israel is the fig tree in the OT (Hos 9:10; Joel 1:7; Isa 34:34; Jer 24:1-8). The parable of the fig tree (Lk 13:6-9) shows that God gave Israel ample time to repent and bear fruit (Isa 5:2; Matt 3:7-10). The budding of the fig tree isn’t necessarily the generation of 1948. Luke 21:29 says “the fig tree and all the trees” indicating he isn’t just talking about Israel, but the generation that sees all the things taking place during the events described here. A generation could be a hundred years (Gen 15:13, 16).
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So if I uderstand the distinctions being made by Ruckman and ultra-dispensationalists as you note above, it amounts to saying that the NT books that aren't Pauline in origin should not be used to teach doctrine to the church, right? Then what does it mean that these non-Pauline books are "spiritual" (I think I already understand their distinction of "historical")?
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They read everything through the lens of those epistles being written for Israel when they go through the Tribulation period. They will take Acts 2:38 and interpret it the same way the Church of Christ interprets it. The Book of Acts is a transitional book but Ruckman and the Church of Christ try to interpret it without looking at the context. In Acts 2:23 Peter told the Jews that with wicked hands they have crucified and slain their Messiah. in verse 37 it says they were pricked in their hearts and ask the question, "What shall we do?" in view of the fact that they had crucified their Messiah. The answer was They were to repent of believing Jesus was a blasphemer (Matt 26:65) and believe He was indeed the Son of God and be baptized in His name.
The word for (Gk. eis) means "because of." Jesus died for (because of) our sins.. In Mark 1:4 the same Greek word "eis" is used when John preached the baptism of repentance "for the remission of sins." They didn't get baptized in order to repent. They got baptized because of the fact that they had repented. Take two aspirin for a headache. You take two aspirin because you have a headache, not to obtain one.
You could go to Lez Feldick's website and would get pretty close to what Peter Ruckman taught. There will always be minor differences. Peter attacks Bullinger as being a "dry cleaner" I believe in order to draw attention away from his own hyper beliefs on Dispensationalism.
In other words Peter preached a different gospel than Paul.
Matthew 16:27-28 KJV - For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
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And this is where one must try to reconcile scripture. The Lord Jesus obviously has not come back and there have been wars much worse than when Titus destroyed the temple. You read of the worldwide judgments found in the Book of Revelation and its obviously talking about future events. Matthew 16: 27-28 is immediately followed by the Transfiguration where they caught a glimpse of his second coming.
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Thanks for the effort to explain how these categories and distinctions are framed by the (hyper) dispensationalist mind.
Here's an excerpt of a "mid-acts dispensationalist" the epitomizes what I believe to be the wrong hermeneutical approach they often employ...
By such rationale, it seems that the only conclusion about OT salvation is that the ultra-dispensationalist demands that Jesus was telling the Jew that in order to inherit eternal life he must believe in Jehovah AND do good works "keep my commandments". However that is boiled down it amounts to a works-based form of salvation in the OT. But Romans 4:3 (et al) show explicitly that salvation/justification has always been by faith alone. This framework that the ultras use is often allegedly in an attempt to properly apply the Scriptures (by "rightly dividing" it) in order to avoid difficulties and/or contradictions within Scripture, but in putting their hermeneutic(s) in place they violate the EXPLICITLY clear tenets that are the starting point of Scipture (sola fide).
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When Jesus told the rich young ruler to keep the commandments in order to have eternal life, it was obvious that was impossible. The Ten Commandments weren't given to save anyone including the Jews. "For by the law came the knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20). The Law can only condemn; it has no power to save. The young man lied about keeping the ten commandments and refused to acknowledge his sin. Instead of coming to God and crying out "God be merciful to me a sinner," he went away sorrowful still in his sins. The greatest reason people reject the gospel is their love for sin.
Joh 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Joh 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Rom 8:3-4 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
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He didn't say return. He said "come in His Kingdom."
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Sure. But that"s a completely differen issue. You linked to an R. C. Sproul video. Sproul was no Dispensationalist; he was a millennial or even postmillennial, depending on how old that video is. All sorts of non-Dispensationalists see Romans 11 promising a future for Israel in redemptive hsitory: Spurgeon, Piper, me...
What I was addressing was the definition of "Israel of God" in Gal. 6:16. Paul argues at length (ch. 3-4) that true "Israel" is a community of faith, not blood. He wasn't going to arbitrarily go back to the physical definition of "Israel" for one sentence.
Similarly in Romans 11, the fig tree analogy comes at the end of an argument beginning in chapter 9, where he says "not all who are of Israel are Israel," because again, the sons of the promise are whose who are in Christ by faith. The fig tree itself, which represents Israel, consists of the root (the patriarchs), branches grafted in representing the believing Gentiles, and branches cut away representing the unbelieving Jews. Not all of true Israel consists of sons of Jacob, and many of them are, at least for now, cut out of it.
Grace, not race, determines who gets to be a true Israelite.
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The Bible defines race as the stock one comes from. The Jews come from the stock of Abraham (Acts 13:26). I agree 100% that grace not race determines who will be saved. I don't deny that the Church is called spiritual Israel but I also believe the Jews as a race were used as God's witness to the other nations. In Romans 11 Paul isn't talking about spiritual Israel but Jews according to the flesh. They were blinded and cut off while the Gentiles were grafted in. Do you deny that modern day Israel is the same people the apostle Paul was talking about? For 2500 years Israel was not a sovereign nation until they were regathered and once again numbered among the nations. Yes they are in unbelief but that was what was prophesied. God will one day change their hearts and establish them as the head nation. I don't want to be arrogant but I don't understand your position.
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