Dispensationalism vs covenant theology is a raging debate in the church right now. But this does not mean that the debate has to be misrepresented. It’s frustrating that dispensationalists frame the debate as being about hermeneutics. The dispensationalists claim to believe in a literal grammatical-historical approach to interpreting Scripture, including prophecy, while the covenant theologians selectively spiritualize the text. Covenant theologians, instead, claim via faith statements, that Scripture is the ultimate lens of interpreting Scripture as stated in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith which states:
The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which are not many, but one), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.20
So what happens when Scripture spiritualizes a prophecy, or interprets a prophecy as being fulfilled? On this question, dispensationalism generally asserts a futurist view of Old Testament prophecy fulfilled either in Christ or often elsewhere in the Old Testament.
“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.”
Genesis 12 is a classic passage used by Christian Zionists to justify their theology. Despite the lack of blessings found in blessing Modern Israel, this prophecy finds its fulfillment in the Old Testament. The borders are defined in multiple places such as 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:19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite 20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim 21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”
It is often the claim of Zionists that these borders include all of the Euphrates and the river of Egypt is the Nile. This understanding is incorrect, further compounded by the nations listed and the nations excluded. Joshua 1:4 states: “From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.”
Dispensationalists claim that this prophesy was never fulfilled, and covenant theologians will often claim that this is spiritual. But the Bible believes that these prophecies were fulfilled.
20 Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance; they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.
21 Now Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
1 Kings 4 clearly teaches that the land promise and even the population promise to Abraham were fulfilled under the reign of Solomon. God’s removal of this land does not discredit his faithfulness because land promises were also made in Deuteronomy 28 where God promises to remove them for disobedience.
Thus, the return promises of Deuteronomy 30 are not found in Modern Israel, but in the return from Babylonian exile.
30 “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you, 2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, 3 then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. 5 The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.
This prophecy’s fulfillment shows the forward planning of God, that he knew that he was going to give Israel land and subsequently take it away, and allow them to resettle it once more. The Bible showcases these events in great detail with books like Jeremiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
To say all these prophecies concerning Israel are yet to be fulfilled is to ignore the plain reading of Scripture and how its original receivers would have interpreted these events, let alone how the Scriptures would have been interpreted in, say, the time of the Macabbees. During this time, they were a state, though often a vassal of Rome.
The claim of Modern Israel’s legitimacy to inherit Ancient Israel’s land promises is predicated on the lack of sovereignty, a point the Macabbees made irrelevant. But the return and regathering are also predicated on repentance. Modern Israel is therefore disqualified from fulfilling the prophecy to this criterion. But most importantly, the regathering is about Christ coming forth into the world, as is the seed promise of Abraham in the first place.
The moving of the goal posts regarding prophetic fulfillment done by dispensationalism relegates Scripture’s ability to interpret Scripture.
6 Responses
The only reasonable position is that all Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled by 70 AD.
Any position that even 1 Old Testament prophecy is outstanding leads to absolute insanity and is just a straight up return to Judaism. Only New Testament prophecies can be outstanding.
That prophecy in Genesis doesn’t say Jews will rule all those lands but that descendants of Abraham will live there. And the Arabs are also descendants of Abraham according to any convention that holds Abraham actually existed. Ergo, it was fulfilled.
In fact, honestly, by the time the “prophecy” in Genesis was even written down, it had already been fulfilled. It would have only been a prophecy in Abraham’s time when it was merely oral. When Moses wrote it down, he was writing well known “fact.” That is, that the nations he considered to be descended from Abraham, i.e. the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzite, Rephaim, Amorite, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites, were already occupying the land “From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.” Some of these tribes listed are in fact the very tribes that Israel will wipe out in conquering the land of Canaan. And these were understood to be descendants of Abraham by the slave woman Hagar and his later wife Keturah.
And as for the “Girgashites” we find them still in the land in Jesus’ day, as he visits “the land of the Gergasenes” which is now called “the Golan Heights.”
‘dispensationalism generally asserts a futurist view of Old Testament prophecy fulfilled either in Christ or often elsewhere in the Old Testament.’
This is nonsensical and a weesley way to describe dispensationalism.
What is a prophecy, its about the future..
Everyone in the barbershop looks and says you don’t say?
I do think a lot, vast majority of OT prophecy was fulfilled either by The time of Christ, or up to around 70 AD.
The tricky part though is this, Some of the prophecies may have been fulfilled but the fulfillment is not included in our canon, for whatever reason, some could actually be end times futurist.
Frankly, there are people on both dispy and covenantal sides who do not in my estimation appear to actually be discussing the problem in good faith, and as such, no progress is actually made.
Veretax, he just hasn’t learned how to use commas yet. He meant something like “dispensationalism generally asserts a futurist view of Old Testament prophecy, i.e. it denies that these prophecies were already fulfilled either in Christ or often elsewhere in the Old Testament.”
“The tricky part though is this, Some of the prophecies may have been fulfilled but the fulfillment is not included in our canon, for whatever reason, some could actually be end times futurist.”
No, they would be CANCELLED by the advent of Christ. Of such is Zechariah 14, as rebuilding the temple after Christ has built the final temple, the church; and bringing back the animal sacrifices after Christ has offered himself as the once-for-all sacrifice, would be heresy and blasphemy. Therefore anyone who doesn’t understand that Zechariah 14 is simply cancelled by the advent of Christ, will become a Judaizing heretic. Anything that cannot be fulfilled without spitting on the sacrifice of Christ has to be understood as cancelled.