Disputations on Hermeneutics - 4A

Below is the expanded outline for the dispensational hermeneutical structure.

Expanded Outline

I.            Theism—any Christian epistemological system must begin with the assumption that a Creator-god exists.

a.       Immanence—the Creator-god has spoken; He has revealed a “Word” that His creatures have the capacity of receiving through their physical senses.

                           i.      Primo Regnum—as a function of God having spoken, the Christian Theist must also assume that His special Word is revealed in the canonized scriptures alone.  Not that the scriptures are the only authority in the life of the believer, but that their right interpretations are the primary and final authority.  Not that every physically audible word of God, or vision or dream sent by God has been included in this collection of “Words”, but all of those Words necessary for  the life and godliness of believer is therein revealed.

II.            Scripture Interprets Scripture—some may question how this is a principle distinctive to Dispensationalism, but if one compares the two outlines I have laid out in this section; he would see that I’ve contrasted this principle with the analogy of faith on the Reformed side.  The analogy of faith seems to carry with it, the ideas of: the  observable Christocentricity of the Old testament, the assumption that latter special revelation must be used to help interpret former special, and all general revelation, especially when it concerns promise/fulfillment, and “prophecy > revealing > understanding” schemes.

III.            Internal & Exclusive Grammatical/Historical Priority of the Old Testament—this is the idea that the meaning of a prophesy or the object of a promise given in the Old Testament is dictated exclusively by the words with which it was given, and how they were understood in their historical context; and by necessity, any interpretation of  the fulfillment of a prophesy or any concept of the object of a promise taken from the New Testament that seems to expand or amplify what seemed apparent about the  Old Testament prophesy/promise is wrong.

a.       Distinction between Israel and the Church—the hub of Dispensational theology is that, spiritual Israel and the Church are now and always viewed as two separate peoples of God.

                           i.      Literalism—a major guiding principle in Dispensational Theology is the view that states that, unless otherwise expressly told differently within the immediate context of a passage, the grammatical/historical understanding of a prophesy/promise given, is its only possible fulfillment; the object of promise and the object of fulfillment are always the same.  If an Old Testament prophesy is ever “expanded” in the New Testament that expansion can never negate, trump or “explain away” the grammatical/historical understanding of those prophesies.  This “literal” hermeneutical presupposition, as the dispensationalist would call it, serves as the rim of the wheel of the dispensational interpretive framework.

                         ii.      The promises God made to Abraham (and subsequently to ethnic Israel) are only ever meant to be fulfilled by ethnic, believing Israel in some future age and can never be applied to believers saved in the "Church Age”.

                        iii.      Millennial Israel and their future activity are the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies.

1.       Semitecentric Eschatology—God’s primary purpose in redemptive history is the salvation of His chosen people, Israel. And these people are the ethnic Jewish people He has sustained throughout the history of the world.

a.       A contrast between the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven.

b.       Two eternally distinct peoples of God—His earthly people Israel, and His heavenly people, the Church.

c.       Jesus will be made King in the Millennium—He has not yet assumed His Kingly office or duties.

                                                               i.      The Church is unknown prior to Pentecost--The concept of "Church" as a people is a mystery not spoken of prophetically at all in the Old Testament.

                                                             ii.      The Church Age is parenthetical to God's dealings with ethnic Israel—the "Church Age" is a result of Israel's rejection of Christ's offer of the Kingdom, now.

                                                            iii.      Paul’s Primary Apostolic Purpose—was to teach the "new age" of believer his distinction in redemptive history from the previous, old age believer, and the future Jewish believer

Most dispensationalists, and Charles Ryrie himself, in his chapter from “Dispensationalism Today” called, “What is a Dispensation”, state that the sin qua non of Dispensationalism is three-fold (I’ll only mention two of those parts here): “a dispensationalist keeps Israel and the Church distinct”, and “this distinction is born out of a system of hermeneutics that is usually referred to as literal interpretation”.  While this may be the claim of contemporary, revised dispensationalists, I believe that the numerous occasions where they don’t interpret prophesy literally, for whatever reason, should direct one to question the causal relationship between the “Israel/Church Distinction”, and the hermeneutical presupposition of  “Literal Interpretation”.  That is why, in the outline above I have suggested that the literal hermeneutic is only absolutely necessary when the separation of Israel and the Church is at stake, and can be substituted with a hermeneutical principle of contextual hierarchy when the text allows.  Thus I believe that, in practice, the dispensational hermeneutical architecture shows that the presupposition of “literal interpretation” is caused by the presupposition that Israel and the Church must remain absolutely distinct.