Speech by Kevin D. Zuber, PhD
The Fundamentals of Dispensational Theology and The Relation of that Theology to Christian Zionism
HCEF 9th International Conference “walking the Path of Peace”
Introduction: Thank you for your kind invitation to speak to you on the matters of Dispensational Theology and Christian Zionism; and the question of why Christians ought to support the nation of Israel.
To begin with I would like to point out that while the HCEF program indicates that this is to be a discussion between an Evangelical Christian and a Christian Zionist it should be understood that I am a conservative Evangelical Christian theologian. My education includes two evangelical seminaries; I am a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and I teach in an Evangelical institution. My position is conservative but not “extreme” as some would like to characterize it.
I am also a dispensationalist. Over forty years ago (and reiterated in a newer edition of his work in 1995) dispensational theologian Charles C. Ryrie in his book Dispensationalism Today (1995 edition Dispensationalism) made a plea. He wrote this: “Every Christian has a right to his convictions about biblical truth, but as long as we are in earthly bodies none of us can be infallible. No one has all the truth— . . . Nevertheless, we should hold with conviction the truth as we believe God has given us the understanding of it. False humility may be only a cover-up for unwillingness to take a stand for what one considers to be the truth. . . . The biblical mandate is well expressed in Paul’s words: ‘speaking the truth in love’ (Eph. 4:15).” And then he adds, “Normative dispensationalism is a legitimate, worthy, and conservative viewpoint. Other Christians do not have to agree with it, but they should represent it fairly and treat its contributions with respect. This is simply a matter of Christian integrity and courtesy.”
Sadly, I must report to you that that plea has too often been ignored by critics of dispensational theology. Let’s face it, every movement has a “fringe” and a “popular,” less nuanced aspect to it. To latch onto the pronouncements of the fringe and with that to use derogatory and pejorative language to describe the whole is not . . . well, it is not fair, it is not right, it lacks integrity and charity. I take it your invitation to me is an attempt to correct that.
“What are the key elements of Dispensational Theology that ultimately lend themselves to support (some of the theological) tenets of Christian Zionism?”
Dispensationalists generally hold to these key points:
Dispensationalists believe:
1. That the Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God (1 Timothy 3:16). This is not peculiar to dispensationalism; it is in fact, the key doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Theological Society, which reads “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.” (etsjets.org, accessed 10/09/2007)
Dispensationalists also believe:
2. That the most faithful method of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) is the literal method. Again, this is not peculiar to dispensationalism, although there are some rather keen debates among evangelicals over the meaning of “literal.” By literal we mean “interpretation that gives every word [of Scripture] the same meaning it would have in normal usage, whether employed in writing, speaking or thinking. It is sometimes called grammatical-historical interpretation since the meaning of each word is determined by grammatical and historical considerations. The principle might be called normal interpretation since the literal meaning of words is the normal approach to their understanding in all languages.” (Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 1995, 80)
With that as the basis, Dispensationalists believe:
3. That the promises made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 15:1-21; 17:1-21; 22:15-19) concerning his descendants and their right to the land (13:16-17; 15:18-21) and to David (2 Samuel 7:12-16) concerning a descendant who will inherit the Davidic right to an everlasting Kingdom are unconditional, irrevocable (Romans 11:29) and everlasting promises. These promises must not be (and need not be) re-interpreted through “New Testament” eyes. In other words, while there may be principles concerning God’s soteriological program that transcend the two testaments (sovereign election, salvation by grace alone) those in no way necessitate a re-interpretation of those Old Testament promises in such a way that we must regard them as abrogated, voided and/or transferred to the church. My old hermeneutics professor put it this way, “We may come to see more in those Old Testament promises, but we cannot see less.” Or yet again, “The Old Testament cannot be interpreted to mean now what it never meant then.” To be clear, we simply ask, “What would Abraham and David have heard? And what would those promises have meant to them?”
What do those promises entail? The answer to that question would take us into some fairly precise and detailed exposition of several key passages of the Hebrew Scriptures and we simply do not have the time here to examine them all. One of my colleagues at the Moody Bible Institute, Dr. Michael Rydelnick, has written an excellent overview of the political and biblical issues surrounding the conflict between Palestinians and the nation of Israel in book titled Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict (published by Moody Publishers; revised and updated edition, 2007). In this work he sets for the biblical case for the land promises to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. (The following discussion leans heavily on Dr. Rydelnik’s work.)
The primary passage is that of Genesis 12:1-3, which reads:
“1 Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, And from your relatives, And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse, And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed’.”
You may have noticed the repetition of the expression, “I will” by the LORD. He is clearly making an unconditional promise.
Now, it may be noted that the promise to make Abraham “a great nation” would imply a promise of the land to which the Lord had called him. This is made explicit in Genesis 13:14-17,
“14 The LORD said to Abram. . . ‘Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; 15 for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. 16 I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. 17 Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.” (emphasis added)
This promise is dramatically reaffirmed in Genesis chapter 15. Here the ceremony initiated by the LORD, following well-established ANE patterns of covenant making, makes it abundantly clear that the LORD alone is obligating Himself to the stipulations of this covenant. In this ceremony Abram is instructed by the LORD cut several sacrificial animals in two and lay “each half opposite the other.” (15:10). The text of Genesis 15 then describes how the LORD alone passes between the pieces of the slain animals (15:17) Dr. Rydelnick explains, “By passing alone between the pieces of the sacrifice, God showed that the covenant did not depend on Abram but on the Lord alone. The covenant that was established was unconditional, subject only to the will and power of the God of Abram, not Abram at all.” (Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 153)
The particulars of this “unconditional covenant” are explicitly given in Genesis 15:18 “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘To your descendants I have given this land; From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.’” The next verses cite a number of ancient tribes, which further delimits the area indicated in the land promise. It should be noted that the real world, physical topographical indications (rivers) and the geo-political indications (i.e. particular ANE peoples mentioned) make it obvious that the promise was to be fulfilled on the earth, in a real time and space setting and must not be interpreted in a spiritual or heavenly way. This was a promise to be fulfilled in time on the earth. And again it was unconditional. This unconditional nature of the promise is seen in the several reaffirmations of the covenant with Abraham, such as Genesis 17:7-8 “And I establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be your God to you and your descendants after you. And I will give to you and your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” This unconditional nature of the promise is seen in the several reaffirmations of the covenant with Isaac (17:21) and with Jacob (26:3; 35:12). This unconditional nature of the promise is seen in the several reaffirmations of the covenant with the whole nation (cf. 1 Chronicles 16:8-18; 2 Chronicles 20:7).
In several of these texts, we have seen, not only are the promises unconditional promises but they are everlasting promises as well. “Both Genesis 13:15 and 2 Chronicles 20:7 state that God gave the land to Israel as an inheritance ‘forever.’” (Rydelnik, 155) Dr. Rydelnik points out that the Hebrew term translated “forever”, olam, “does not necessarily mean ‘for all eternity’,” so “it could possibly mean that God gave the land to Israel for a long time, but not forever.” That is, on its own the term olam may, or may not mean “unending perpetuity.” There is, however, an interesting use of the term in the oft repeated phrase “forever and ever,” or from “everlasting to everlasting.” This phrase is most often used to describe the eternity of God Himself. Dr. Rydelnik writes, “As a general rule, the phrase is used of matters pertaining to God. For example, it is used to describe the eternal blessedness of God (e.g. 1 Chronicles 16:36: ‘Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.’ The phrase declares the lovingkindness of God to be eternal (Psalm 103:17), and God’s existence to be eternal (Psalm 90:2).” In sum, “for the most part it [the phrase, min olam v’ad olam] refers to God and His eternal nature.” However, Dr. Rydelnik points out that there are two texts that use the phrase in which it does not refer to God “In both cases it refers to the nation of Israel’s eternal possession of the land of Israel. In Jeremiah 7:7, God promises Israel, ‘I will let you dwell in this place, in the land I gave to your fathers for ever and ever.” The prophet also uses the same phrase in Jeremiah 25:5, telling Israel that they will “dwell in the land which the Lord has given to you and your fathers for ever and ever.” (Rydelnik, 155-56) Again, olam on its own may mean “for a long time” or it may mean “unending perpetuity.” However, since the two uses of the term in Jeremiah indicate that the land promises were as “everlasting” as God is “everlasting” we may legitimately interpret those other passages using olam in the promise of the land as indications that “God has given the land of Israel to the people of Israel as a perpetual and eternal inheritance.” (Rydelnik, 156)
Returning to my main outline, we next note that dispensationalists hold:
4. That the Mosaic Covenant did not (so to speak) re-negotiate the Abrahamic promise so that Israel’s right to the land was now “conditional.” Simply put, the covenant with Moses (the Law) was given to a people who had the promises to the fathers (Deuteronomy 4: 37; 7:6-9), who were already called “My people” by the LORD (Exodus 3:7; 5:1), who had been redeemed from bondage in Egypt (Leviticus 25:38, 42, 55) in order that they might enjoy these graciously and unconditionally given promises (Deuteronomy 4:40; Leviticus 18:5). The conditional element was not whether Israel would keep the promises as a nation, but whether or not they, as a generation or an individual, would enjoy the blessings of the promises. This is Paul’s explicit statement in Galatians 3:17 “What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.” The Babylonian Captivity for instance was threatened and carried out by the LORD because of the disobedience of Jeremiah’s generation (Jeremiah 9:1-11; 11:1-11), they (that generation) were not to enjoy the blessings of the land any longer. But, because the LORD had made promises to Abraham and David, that captivity was to be only seventy years (25:11-12) and the people and the “waste places” were to be restored (31:1-22; chapter 50). It was clear that this Captivity did not abrogate the covenant promises. To illustrate this Jeremiah is commanded to buy a field, for although there was to be destruction and a long time of desolation ultimately “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” (32:15).
This situation was actually anticipated in Leviticus 26 where among the stipulations for disobedience to the Mosaic Law was the threat of being scattered among the nations (Leviticus 26:33). However, the chapter ends with the promise of covenant renewal in which the LORD promises to remember “My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember My covenant with Isaac, and My Covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land.” (26:42; cf. 26:43-45). So again, the covenant itself cannot be abrogated by Israel’s disobedience to the Mosaic Law, however, the enjoyment of those promises may be lost by individual or generation. Nevertheless, an unconditional and everlasting promise from the Almighty Sovereign God cannot fail to come to fruition. This is the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 11: “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (11:2a); “for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (11:29).
Next, (and I would like this to be especially noted) Dispensationalists hold:
5. That the promises to Abraham and David ultimately find their fulfillment in the Second Coming of The LORD Jesus Christ. Again, the doctrine of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is not peculiar to dispensationalism. However, dispensationalists do believe that after a period of chastisement and judgment, Jesus Christ will return as the Jewish Messiah, the Greater Son of David and when He comes, He comes to reign: “And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only One and His name the only One.” (Zechariah 14:9; cf. Philippians 2:9-11; Revelation 19:16 “And on His Robe and on His thigh He has a name written, ‘King of kings, and Lord of lords.”) At the time of the Second Coming (which again, is not a doctrine peculiar to dispensationalists, although we would see this in quite literal terms) the nation of Israel will recognize Him as the Messiah (Zechariah 12:9; 13:6) and will begin to see the full restoration of the promises to Abraham and David (Zechariah 14:10-11, 12ff; Ezekiel 37; Isaiah 59:20-21 {cf. Romans 11:25ff} Isaiah chapters 62, 66). This glorious reign will last one-thousand years (Revelation 20).
Furthermore Dispensationalists hold:
6. The church, having been grafted in (Romans 11:17) to the New Covenant promises (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 9:15; cf. Hebrews 8:8f and Jeremiah 31:31f), participates in the Abrahamic Promises in a limited and soteriological way. That is, as Paul explains it in Romans 11, Israel has “stumbled” (v. 11); principally, they did not accept the salvation by grace alone in the death of the Messiah, nor did they recognize their King; but this does not mean they are completely rejected. Again, the Apostle Paul writes “I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them [Israel] jealous. Now if their transgression be riches for the world and their failure be riches for Gentles, how much more will their fulfillment be?” (Romans 11:11-12) A few verses later Paul makes it clear that this “in-grafting” of the Gentiles is not the last word but that God can and will “graft them [Israel] back in again (v. 23) and that this “partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel shall be saved.” (11:25b-26a) Listen carefully to Paul’s summary in Romans 11:28-29 “From the standpoint of the gospel [matters of salvation in Christ], they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers [Abraham and the Patriarchs of Genesis]; for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.”
A short hand way of expressing this point is that “a dispensationalist keeps Israel and the church distinct.” That is, the promises made to the nation, through Abraham and David, are never to be applied “whole cloth” to the church. The program of the history of redemption is Jewish. The church and the world have always been a part of that program (“in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”) but the program is, again, centered around the people God has called “the chosen people.”
Now . . . to conclude allow me please a few summary and wider ranging remarks:
7. Dispensationalists are expectant when it comes to the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham and David. We believe that there are specific features of the unfolding of this program; some features that apply to the church alone, some that pertain to the nation of Israel and the nations of the world. There really isn’t time to detail these but I want it to be clear—dispensationalists do not believe (at least the saner ones do not believe) that we can influence the timing or nature of these features in any way! It is just not true that a desire to bring on WWIII is a part of the theology of dispensationalism! As with all Christians we deplore violence; we are NOT harboring hopes of Armageddon. Statements like “The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism” is simply false. Let me say, categorically, the gospel of dispensationalism is NOT “identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism.” Furthermore, no Dispensationalist believes we have the power to “doom” anyone to Armageddon; no Dispensationalist anticipates with joy the tribulation nor do we relish the prospect of people going to eternal judgment. These are uncharitable and disingenuous mis-characterizations. The Gospel of dispensational theology is a gospel of the love of God in Christ for sinners who need to be restored to the fullness of life God intended for those made in His image and redeemed from the eternal consequences of their sin.
As a Christian my citizenship is (primarily) in heaven (cf. Philippians 3:20) and my commission from Christ is to preach the Gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:19-20) and serve all nations, just as Jesus Christ healed Jews, a Roman centurions’ servant (Luke 7:1-10), a Syrophoenician woman’s daughter (cf. Mark 7:26).
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
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