UGC not only studies doctrine, we are professional refiners of doctrine. We didn't just pick one of our favorite confessions of the outdated past and indiscriminately follow it without sifting it through the lens of a thorough comparative analysis against scripture.
The Doctrine of Complete Dispensationalism was clarified by UGC; we perform the same professional function as those who outlined, say, the LBCF 350 years ago, except we certainly believe Complete Dispensationalism is more accurate to scripture. Allow me to explain why.
First, asserting that a work carries more credibility because it's older has numerous flaws. If age is an independent variable in analysis, Buddhism and Hinduism should also carry more weight. They've certainly been around a while and are recognized by multitudes of people around the world.
Even my close friends who are practicing scientists often say that when it comes to analysis, men tend to be awed by prestige and other men deemed experts by culture and history.
Especially from the Christian perspective, the problem is, history is written by the winners of the world, not the winners of the faith. We ultimately win when we get to heaven.
“What is History,” said Napoleon, “but a fable agreed upon?”
Rather than applying a confession as a template to help you analyze scripture, analyzing and critiquing confessions from the scriptures is the correct approach.
The former would be a backwards approach since no 2 confessions agree with each other: i.e. the Presbyterian Westminster Confession differs from the LBCF,
despite the seven churches who drafted the LBCF's attempts at appealing to the Presbyterian leadership in Parliament at the time, out of fear of being associated with the Anabaptists (which is why followers of the LBCF are ironically closer in theology to Presbyterians than Baptists who do not hold to this confession, as politics do have any influence over our doctrine whatsoever). UGC disagrees with both of these confessions, as do many others.
Actually, much like science and medicine, our understanding of doctrine and theology has become increasingly refined since a few centuries ago, because each new generation has immediate access to the lifelong work of all who came prior. What took each prior generation a lifetime to clarify now takes us a fraction of the time to learn from reading them, by which we then have an instant head start to take their lifelong work and refine it further.
Speaking as an experienced analyst who confers on a casual basis with scientists, this is how all areas of professional research and analysis work. Doctors do not doubt all of their current refinements and advancements in medicine in favor of going back to some outdated medical practice of the 1600's just because it came first.
Attempting to revive the outdated doctrines of John Calvin,
who used a 5-letter acronym to understand the word of God, much like alchemists once broke down all of nature into just 4 elements: air, earth, fire and water... before the Periodic Table of Elements was developed in 1869, is a dated method compared to modern studies into Dispensationalism, which have since
refined once foggier distinctions in scripture, albeit without inventing anything completely new.
As just one example of many, Calvin didn’t have access to Bible apps with which he could
instantly cross-reference words and phrases across the entirety of scripture
with a single click of a button.
It’s innovations like this in addition to all of the work men have consummated both before and after John Calvin, that has made Dispensationalism the surgically accurate theology that it is today.
Show your LBCF friends our latest video on the matter:
FYI: Followers of the LBCF are obviously Calvinist Covenant Theologians, which, while some Baptists around the world do adhere to, is actually the minority doctrinal position of Baptists in the United States.
Actually, the Fundamental Baptist movement in the US is largely defined by its opposition to the New Calvinist Movement seeping back into Baptist churches, and is just one of the reasons many of them split from, for example, the SBC, because Dispensationalism and the Pre-Tribulational Premillennial position is considered orthodox by Fundamental Baptists in the US (and goes back well before Darby). Therefore, while some Baptists might identify with the LBCF, most FUNDAMENTAL Baptists do not. If this were just a Baptist forum, pushing the LBCF over Dispensationalism would be fine. But as a Fundamental Baptist forum, the LBCF is actually the fringe view as Calvinist Covenant Theology is in fact the opposing camp of Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism was the predominant position held by Baptists in the US until the recent attempted comeback of the Reformed New Calvinist Movement.