Prequel to “Responding to Dispensationalism”, Installation #18: Dispensational Differences; Ryrie or Post Chafer Dispensationalism

Ryrie or Post Chafer Dispensationalism

What is a Dispensation?

These are the words of Charles Ryrie as he describes in the second chapter of his work, Dispensationalism just what a dispensation is,

“A concise definition of a dispensation is this: A dispensation is a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God's purpose. If one were describing a dispensation, he would include other things, such as the ideas of distinctive revelation, responsibility, testing, failure, and judgment. But at this point we are seeking a definition, not a description. In using the word economy as the core of the definition, the emphasis is put on the biblical meaning of the word itself. Economy also suggests that certain features of different dispensations might be the same or similar. Differing political and economic economies are not completely different, yet they are distinguishably different. Communistic and capitalistic economies are basically different, and yet there are functions, features, and items in these opposing economies that are the same. Likewise, in the different economies of God's running the affairs of this world certain features are similar. However, the word distinguishable in the definition points out that some features are distinctive to each dispensation and mark them off from each other as different dispensations. These are contained in the particular revelation distinctive to each dispensation.”

Ryrie continues by saying this, “The phrase "the outworking of God's purpose" in the definition reminds us that the viewpoint in distinguishing the dispensations is God's, not man's. The dispensations are economies instituted and brought to their purposeful conclusion by God. The distinguishing features are introduced by God; the similar features are retained by God; and the overall combined purpose of the whole program is the glory of God. Erich Sauer states it this way:

‘A new period always begins only when from the side of God a change is introduced in the composition of the principles valid up to that time; that is, when from the side of God three things concur:

1. A continuance of certain ordinances valid until then;
2. An annulment of other regulations until then valid;
3. A fresh introduction of new principles not before valid.’ [15]

To summarize: Dispensationalism views the world as a household run by God. In His householdworld God is dispensing or administering its affairs according to His own will and in various stages of revelation in the passage of time. These various stages mark off the distinguishably different economies in the outworking of His total purpose, and these different economies constitute the dispensations. The understanding of God's differing economies is essential to a proper interpretation of His revelation within those various economies.”
Underlining is mine.

What are the Distinctives of Dispensationalism?

Though in this post I have intended to show the dissimilarities between the classic/historical and the Ryrie type of dispensationalism or where I believe Ryrie has departed from the historical expression of it. Ryrie himself would claim to share the same hermeneutic as his distant predecessors, and the following quote is an interesting piece of evidence in that regard. “Nondispensational interpreters (of the covenant theology school) have been guilty of reading back (and sometimes forcing) the teaching of the New Testament into the Old, especially in an effort to substantiate their doctrine of salvation in the Old Testament.” Underlining is mine.

This quote is taken from the same chapter quoted above, but under the section titled, “THE RELATION OF THE DISPENSATIONS TO PROGRESSIVE REVELATION”. I believe it is Ryrie’s attempt to describe what is at the heart of the matter concerning why covenant theologians see more unity in the two testaments, and his attempt at pin pointing the source motivation behind a hermeneutical principle that is in fact held very dear by covenant theologians. From this section alone, one problem I see in Ryrie’s interpretation of the covenant theologian’s involvement in the controversy is that he seems to think that we either believe that their in NO DISUNITY between the two testaments, or that the system doesn’t logically allow for any. Either way, he would be wrong in that analysis, covenant theology in fact does see forms of disunity between the testaments; one very important one is the disunity of the forms of worship regarding the nation of Israel and the Church. And in Reformed Baptist circles, they even see disunity between the signs of circumcision and baptism, two sacraments that are very important to each of their respective covenantal structures. Yet another quote from the next section of his chapter, titled “CHARACTERISTICS OF A DISPENSATION” he has this to say, “ ‘Through Him everyone who believes is freed [justified] from all things, from which you could not be freed [justified] through the Law of Moses’ (Acts 13:39). Here is unquestionably a distinguishable and different way of running the affairs of the world regarding man's responsibility in relation to the most important area of justification. Whatever his responsibility was under the Mosaic Law may be left unspecified at present (see chapter 6), but with the coming of Christ the requirement for justification became faith in Him. This, too, is obviously a distinctive stage in the progress of revelation. Therefore, we conclude that a new dispensation was inaugurated, since the economy and responsibility changed and the new revelation was given.” Underlining is mine.

Obviously, Ryrie displays a surface misunderstanding of Acts 13:39. It is clear in the context that Paul's intention was to remind everyone that no one can be saved by obedience to the Law of Moses. Paul doesn't limit that statement to his present audience rather, he actually links his statements of Christ and His sufficiency to free dead men to what God promised to the fathers (v. 33). This causes us to believe that the application of Christ's righteousness for justification is transdispensational in its efficacy.

These two quotes appear to contradict Ryrie's statements that affirm his belief in one way of salvation...so what does he mean by one way?

Listen to Ryrie's words here as he answers my question, "The basis of salvation in every age is the death of Christ; the requirement for salvation in every age is faith; the object of faith in every age is God; the content of faith changes in the various dispensations. It is this last point, of course, that distinguishes dispensationalism from covenant theology, but it is not a point to which the charge of teaching two ways of salvation can be attached. It simply recognizes the obvious fact of progressive revelation." Ryrie distinguishes between what he calls the object of faith and the content of faith. In his mind, the object of faith is a constant--God, but this object is quite vague--were the people of God in the dispensation of the Law only theists who obeyed the Law of Moses? Certainly covenant theologians do not assert that the average Israelite would have known that Jesus of Nazareth would be the Messiah, but they would assert that they would have known that the sacrifices were symbols ans shadows of someone to come; if the average Israelite believed that the sacrifices were an end in themselves, sufficient to work their salvation, then he wasn't saved. Ryrie continues on to say that the content of one's faith is different. The problem I see with Ryrie's attempted explanation is the definitions of content and object. He defines the Object as God, but what could be the possible difference in the content of faith of the Old testament saints and the New; is the quantity of the content different; does he infer that the Israelite's faith was only in God the Father, while the Christian's faith is in God the Son and His work?

We can definitely say that Ryrie and present dispensationalists say that they do not teach multiple ways of salvation in regards to the necessity of faith in every dispensation, but it is the object of this faith that is dispensationally specific. It is at this point that I believe Dispensationalism is tangential to Arminianism, and I believe that this difference was much more pronounced as one travels further back in the history of dispensational theology. One of the purposes of Ryrie's book in 1965, Dispensationalism Today was to make an attempt to clarify statements made by Scofield onto which covenant theologians have latched and charged Scofield and Dispensationalism as a whole with teaching two ways of salvation.

"Ryrie asserted that earlier dispensationalists, including Scofield, did not teach multiple ways of salvation. They made “unguarded statements that would have been more carefully worded if they were being made in the light of today’s debate.” Ryrie also called on nondispensationalists to acknowledge the significant change in the New Scofield Bible regarding John 1:17 in which the controversial wording was removed and a clear statement of one way of salvation was affirmed."--Vlach in his article, Does Dispensationalism Teach Multiple Ways of Salvation?

Here is the 1917 version of Scofields' notes on John 1:17, "The point of testing is no longer legal obedience as the condition of salvation, but acceptance or rejection of Christ, with good works as a fruit of salvation," I fail to see a huge improvement.

Even though Darby, Scofield, (in his later redaction of a questionable comment he made in the first version of his reference notes on John 1:17) Chafer, Ryrie and other dispensationalists affirm that there is only one transdispensational way of salvation, I think it is symptomatic of their hermeneutical errors and the faults of in their system when they make statements that open their theology up for such criticism that has been offered by covenant theologians; they do not have a system that guards them against making such vague and confusing comments.

Obviously, I think Ryrie, Vlach and others are wrong to give Scofield and Chafer so much credit.

Just listen to the words of Chafer, "A distinction must be observed here between just men of the Old Testament and those justified according to the New Testament. According to the Old Testament men were just because they were true and faithful in keeping the Mosaic Law. . . . men were therefore just because of their own works for God whereas New Testament justification is God's work for man in answer to faith (Rom. 5:1)."--an excerpt from his systematic theology. It doesn't matter what era of human history Chafer wrote in after the Reformation, prior to the onset of dispensational theology, this statement would never had been viewed as orthodox, thus it is not the "unguarded statement" that Ryrie and others would like for it to be, it is instead the consistent theological outworking of a man who thoughts had been bathed in dispensational systematics; he certainly had thought very clearly about it and ever since the Reformation no one could make such a statement in an unguarded fashion unless one was utterly ignorant of historical theology.

Now regarding the stated particularities of Ryrie or Post Chafer Dispensationalism:

According to his 1965 work, Dispensationalism Today, Ryrie makes these three basic distinctions between dispensational and non-dispensational hermeneutics,

1. A clear distinction between Israel and the Church.
2. A “literal” hermeneutic.
3. The overarching purpose of God in the history of the world is His glory.

Much could be said about those three distinctions, it is plain that Covenant Theology would take issue with the first, but the second, as it is stated is too vague because covenant theology also affirms the “literal” interpretation of scripture when it is clearly right to do so, i.e., in historical narrative, but it also relies on the context of genre to corroborate its interpretation of passages, especially when the “plain” meaning of the text offends the hermeneutical principle of the analogy if faith. It is also not helpful to infer such a dichotomy between the two systems on this basis because the dispensationalist also takes a non-literal interpretation of certain portions of scripture, thus perhaps changing their hermeneutic when it suits them. So I submit that John Feinberg makes a more astute observation of the real differences that exist between covenant and dispensational theologians at this point, “The difference is not literalism v. non-literalism, but different understandings of what constitutes literal hermeneutics.”

Covenant theologians all see the glory of God as primary--the Westminster Confession of Faith says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Perhaps Ryrie's motivation to state #3 as a distinctive has something to do with the fact that he recognises the underlying man-centeredness of his system, "The dispensations are economies instituted and brought to their purposeful conclusion by God. The distinguishing features are introduced by God; the similar features are retained by God; and the overall combined purpose of the whole program is the glory of God." For the same reason that current dispensationalist must, time and time again remind their critics that their system teaches only one way of salvation, their critics must also be reminded that their system is not overly man-centered, because the apparent logical conclusions lead outsiders to make such critiques. But I now finally digress; in its inception, the point of this section of this article was not actually to refute the errors I find in dispensational theology but only to examine the similarities and differences between those who call themselves dispensationalist.

Presuppositions:

1. It is incorrect to “re-interpret” the Old Testament in light of the New. This assumption is basic to all the others, and in it there is a rudimentary misunderstanding of what covenant theologians say about the issue. It is clear that covenant theologians believe in the priority of the New Testament because the revelation of God truly is progressive, to the point that the latter Words must be used to help us fully understand the meaning of the former; the covenant theologian does not dismiss or "reinterpret" the grammatical/historical meaning of the Old Testament passages, but he does see that in many cases (prophetic passages in particular) God may not have intended for all the future implications of a prophecy to be fully understood by their immediate recipients, thus there really are two meanings to many of the Old Testament prophecies: its historical meaning and its spiritual meaning, this is part of the “redemptive historical” view. One very clear instance of this is the way Paul views the two women of Galatians 4:22-26. Once a New Testament text explains the spiritual portion of an Old Testament text, then that too, in some sense, becomes part of its historical meaning. The redemptive historical view does not distort the historical/grammatical meaning of an Old Testament prophesy but instead it amplifies it. This is the reason many dispensationalists do not see Christ in the Old testament, because it really isn't, to us in the present, a story all about Him if it wasn't a story about Him then, to those receiving the scriptures. I say that a Christless Old testament leads, for those privy only to Old Testament revelation, a Christless eternity, thus some of the contorted eschatological views held by dispensationalist regarding the separation of the "two peoples of God": the Church and Israel even into eternity.

2. The dealings of God with the Church are unique to this present age. This is perhaps the most difficult of the items I am referring to as presuppositions. Obviously, I think that this thought in the backs of dispensational minds as they read scripture, leads them to misread and misunderstand portions of the Bible because of the hermeneutical system they’ve adopted, but it would be easy to misunderstanding this dispensational thought, because I believe it to be the logical and consistent result of the system. The word, “unique” used in the statement above is not just of my choosing as I attempt to describe dispensational presuppositions, it is one used by them the way I have used it above, and so it begs the questions, “what is unique about the church; is it the way, the means, the manner in which its members are saved?.” Though I do believe that it is clear that for classical/historical Dispensationalism, the content of the faith of Old Testament saints in the age of “Law” was not the merits of Christ, but that the merits of Christ were only the grounds by which all those who were obedient to the Law of Moses were saved (in part, because of its nearly Arminian soteriology) thus as individual saints the content of their faith would not be the coming Christ but rather, it would be their own obedience to the Mosaic Laws—that was the way they found favor and continued in favor with God. One could say that the difference in the salvation for Old and New testament saints in Dispensationalism is that the instrument of justification was, for the saint under the Mosaic economy, obedience to the Mosaic "rule of life", and for those in the church age, the instrument of justification is faith--not that the dispensationalist would say that there was no faith in the Old Testament, but it wasn't the instrument that God used to save those Old saints. Could a dispensationalist imagine the pastoral differences there? When one Old Testament Saint doubted his salvation, the priest would have to say, “…but remember that you have been circumcised, you have offered the appropriate sacrifices for your sins, and the Day of Atonement is before us and behind us…do not doubt God’s favor toward you, you have been an obedient child.” Grant it also that Covenant Theology does believe that there is uniqueness about the church, but this is a uniqueness acquired through varied forms of worship because all the Old Covenant shadows have been substantiated, and all the symbols have been recognized in Christ; The Temple, The Sabbath, The Rest, The Lamb, The Priest, The King, The Prophet, and The Counselor.

3. The Church in no way “supersedes” the nation of Israel as the people of God. My guess is that Ryrie and others make this assumption for the same reason that Darby did, they cannot reconcile the statements made to Israel in the Old Testament because they only read its passages in the historical/grammatical fashion, and refuse to allow the new testament to interpret those passages and the Old Testament types and shadows contained in them—they inevitably miss Christ in the Old Testament.

4. None of the promises God made to national Israel in the Old Testament are ever fulfilled by the Church. Same or similar words could be said here as were stated about the above two presumptions.

Large portions of this data were acquired from, Core Characteristics of Dispensationalism by Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D., and What Is a Dispensation? Chapter 2 of Dispensationalism by Charles C. Ryrie.