Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology Contrasted

I keep get­ting asked by more and more by friends to explain Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism and Covenant The­ol­ogy (here­after DP and CT respec­tively). The dif­fer­ences are nuanced even within their own camps so I can’t pos­si­bly explain all the nuances in this short arti­cle, but I want to offer a simple intro­duc­tion to the con­cepts at hand. Under­stand that I can’t pos­si­bly due jus­tice to the issue so please don’t stop your inves­ti­ga­tion with this arti­cle. I did link to some com­par­a­tive charts to fur­ther your study.

God’s Main Pur­pose in History

In the study­ing I’ve done, I have come to the largest area of dif­fer­ence con­cerns God’s main pur­pose in his­tory. While I don’t want to incor­rectly label either side I believe I can safely give the main dif­fer­ence. DP would say that God’s main pur­pose in his­tory is ethnic Israel while CT would say that God’s main pur­pose in his­tory is his son and by exten­sion his elect. While nei­ther side would min­i­mize their respec­tive focuses, each of those the­o­log­i­cal pre­sup­po­si­tions guide their conclusions.

DP see redemp­tive his­tory focus­ing on God’s work with ethnic Israel. The clas­si­cal ver­sion would go so far to say that, as a result of Israel reject­ing her mes­siah, God has inserted a “parenthetical” time of sal­va­tion to gen­tiles but will return to ethnic Israel in the mil­len­nium described in Rev 20.1 A more pro­gres­sive ver­sion of DP would soften this dis­tinc­tion but would still see God return­ing to ethnic Israel in the mil­len­nium. CT focus all rev­e­la­tion around the rev­e­la­tion of Jesus in his­tory. By stat­ing that God’s main focus is his son and by exten­sion his elect means that God is most con­cerned with his son and all the redeemed he has chosen since the foun­da­tion of the world.

The Hermeneu­tic Issue

What guides both sides to their ulti­mate con­clu­sion is the method that they inter­pret the scrip­tures. You will hear DP always talk of using a “literal hermeneutic” which means that they take all prophe­cies at “face value” to be ful­filled “literally” at some point in the future. They often crit­i­cize CT of lib­er­al­ism and “spiritualizing” texts to make them fit into their the­o­log­i­cal system.

It’s not that CT don’t inter­pret scrip­ture “literally,” but they see dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tion and ful­fill­ment of prophe­cies. CT see the church proph­e­sied in the Old Tes­ta­ment opposed to DP which do not see this in the Old Tes­ta­ment. CT uti­lize (more exten­sively) bib­li­cal typol­ogy to inter­pret events in scrip­ture, and they use the anal­ogy of faith which lets scrip­ture inter­pret scripture.

In Regards To Soteriology

All CT are Calvin­ists, but not all Calvin­ists are CT. One notable exam­ple is John MacArthur who is both a five-​point Calvin­ist and a DP. He and his fol­low­ers are, how­ever, in a vast minor­ity, and they actu­ally are out casted by both sides for their con­vic­tions. DP usu­ally have a system of sal­va­tion that varies on one end to those who teach that Old Tes­ta­ment saints were jus­ti­fied by their obe­di­ence to the Mosaic Law to others who are four-​point Calvinists.

The Millennium

All DP are pre­mil­lenial­ists but not all pre­mil­lenial­ists are DP.2 CT can be either amil­lenial­ists, post­mil­lenial­ists, or pre­mil­lenial­ists con­cern­ing the mil­len­nium in Rev 20. The mil­len­nium is a sticky issue in this debate. DP see this as the time that Israel will be restored per Old Tes­ta­ment prophe­cies, but CT see the restora­tion of Israel hap­ping under the New Covenant, by Jesus the medi­a­tor, in the church.

The Def­i­n­i­tion of “Israel”

DP always see ref­er­ences to “Israel” as refer­ring to Old Covenant ethnic Israel. In this system of the­ol­ogy no member of the “church dispensation” can say they are a part of “Israel” in any sense. Con­trasted to that, CT do rec­og­nize an ethnic Israel, but they see a “spiritual Israel” that con­sists of all the redeemed through­out all the ages. This “spiritual Israel” is short­hand for the church.

Addi­tional Resources

  1. There are CT, such as myself, who think Paul describes a return to ethnic Israel described in Rom 11 but don’t push it into the mil­len­nium the way DP do. [Back]
  2. There are covenant the­olo­gians who are pre­mil­len­nial such as George Ladd and James Boice, but they are described as “historical” pre­mil­lenials. [Back]

Activity

17 total comments, leave your comment.
  1. Perry
    Mar 27th 2007

    I think it might be inter­est­ing to aslo men­tion two-​covenant the­ol­ogy in the con­text of this arti­cle. Also, can you elab­o­rate on how all calvin­ists are covenant the­olo­gians? What is it specif­i­cally that requires that to be true?

    How can you dis­tin­guish your posi­tion on Romans 11 from a DP view on ethnic Israel? As one who holds a more CT view I feel strongly that scrip­ture teaches us that God favors nei­ther race nor real estate so how can you jus­tify your posi­tion on a return of Israel to God and still be a CT? If we hold to the reformed view we must believe that God is the one who would regen­er­ate them to bring them to faith and to do so would seem to show God’s favoritism to an ethnic group (i.e. Israel).

    How much of Israel in the OT is sym­bolic of the NT church? I would say OT Israel is fully sym­bolic of the NT church but your view on Romans 11 seems to sug­gest oth­er­wise.

    Good arti­cle.

  2. Ben G.
    Mar 27th 2007

    Great arti­cle! Per­son­ally I’ve always strug­gled with under­stand­ing exactly what CT and DP believe and then how those beliefs impact their actions. This cleared up a lot for me.

    I’m def­i­nitely a CT, btw.

  3. Chris
    Mar 27th 2007

    @Perry: Two-​covenant the­ol­ogy was beyond the realm of this arti­cle. I was just trying to give a quick overview of the ortho­dox posi­tions.

    As for the Calvin­ism, S.M. Baugh declares, “Let me make a bold asser­tion about Covenant the­ol­ogy: It is not inci­den­tal to Reformed the­ol­ogy — it is Reformed theology.” I think he’s right. One is more inclined to be a Calvin­ist if they are a CT, but not nec­es­sar­ily the other way around. If you find a CT that’s not a Calvin­ist then let me know.

    Romans 11 is a com­plex pas­sage, and we can’t min­i­mize it to only one read­ing. The DP says that the events described in vs. 25-26 happen in the mil­len­nium and revolve around mate­r­ial promises. How­ever, I see the verse speak­ing to God show­ing his covenant faith­ful­ness to ethnic Israel but not over mate­r­ial promises but spir­i­tual ones. I believe it describes a con­ver­sion event where Jews will see her promised mes­siah. God does indeed favor real estate (i.e. whole Old Tes­ta­ment), but that wasn’t the total­ity or even the ulti­mate con­cern of his in redemp­tive his­tory. I believe the pas­sage is about favoritism but covenant faith­ful­ness.

    Again, I think you mis­read my com­ments on Romans 11, and you’re trying to point out an incon­sis­tency that doesn’t exist in your third para­graph. In fact, my view is in the major­ity of reformed CT such as John Piper, Wayne Grudem, R.C. Sproul (check your ref­or­ma­tion bible), Charles Hodge, Thomas Schreiner, etc.

  4. Amanda
    Mar 27th 2007

    Thanks Chris. That’s quite infor­ma­tional.

    It’s quite pos­si­ble I don’t under­stand DP very well or that I’m not really DP, but I’ve never thought of Israel as God’s pur­pose in his­tory. And I’ve never heard that taught. And, I believe I’ve always attended DP insti­tu­tions (church and school). Am I wrong? Per­haps I don’t under­stand. God’s pur­pose is quite clearly His glory. And the means to that end are var­i­ous. But, I would call myself DP.

    Also, this “parenthetical” idea I’ve seen on your blog many times I’ve never seen in DP (and I’ve never believed it). Ever. Non-​Jews aren’t a last-​minute addi­tion. They’re quite clearly a cen­tral part of the plan from the begin­ning. I was taught this at Cedarville and they’re def­i­nitely DP. (Gen. 12:3).

    All the other stuff you said, I agree with. DP does accuse CT of spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing and incor­rectly inter­pret­ing scrip­ture. I’ve heard that many times.

    Anyway, no strong feel­ings on this. Just wanted to bring another view­point and raise a dis­crep­ancy (at least a dis­crep­ancy in my mind – although it’s quite pos­si­ble I don’t under­stand some­thing here). Thanks!

  5. Mike
    Mar 28th 2007

    Haha…. This is a big piece of steak. I think I will stick with my McDonald’s ham­burger for now. The arti­cle was good on explain­ing dif­fer­ences. I would like to look into more of their points of view. I am slowly makin it through Why I am not Armian. So far it is good.

  6. Chris
    Mar 28th 2007

    @Mike: That’s encour­ag­ing! May you be per­suaded one way or another not by the words of man but God’s unfail­ing word.

  7. Keith
    Mar 28th 2007

    With so many irrel­e­vant jabs against dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism, I’d say that this arti­cle does more to make covenan­ters feel spir­i­tu­ally supe­rior than to actu­ally inform the reader as to which one might be cor­rect. :(

  8. Mike
    Mar 28th 2007

    @Keith-​Coming from an unbi­ased, unknowl­edged about the topic reader, this was a well writ­ten arti­cle that pro­vided a good view­point.

  9. Chris
    Mar 28th 2007

    @Amanda: The DP empha­sis on Israel as God’s main pur­pose in his­tory lies truly in a clas­sic view of DP. You can see this view in one of their many images; you see the major prophets seeing the end of time but not the church age. The image shows the church age as a paren­the­sis. I also couldn’t imag­ine any DP hold­ing the “last minute” view on gen­tiles. Remem­ber that Cedarville would be of the pro­gres­sive vari­ety of DP and not the clas­si­cal ver­sion. That’s a whole ‘nother post.

    @Keith: Could you extrap­o­late upon those opin­ions? You do a good job of stat­ing some­thing, forget sub­stan­ti­a­tion, and leave in a fit of glory.

    @Mike: I see you have the “@” down. All the cool kids are doing it!

  10. Amanda
    Mar 28th 2007

    Hm, well I haven’t met any clas­sic DPs then. They must be pretty rare. Are there many clas­sic DPs? I don’t usu­ally hear you make this dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion and this seems to be a big deal. I mean, I’m DP but Israel is not God’s pur­pose of his­tory, from my per­spec­tive. And, from the per­spec­tive of CT, you could say Israel is God’s pur­pose: all believ­ers are Israel and Jesus is Israel also.

    :-)

  11. Mike
    Mar 29th 2007

    @Chris-I don’t under­stand it, but since every­one else was doin it, I fig­ured I would jump on the band­wagon. I am glad after so many years, to be in with the cool crowd!!! : )

  12. Chris
    Mar 29th 2007

    @Amanda: Well, Tim Lahaye and com­pany are clas­si­cal DP, and their influ­ence on pop­u­lar Chris­t­ian cul­ture has shaped the major­ity view on escha­tol­ogy.

    Your last point is a good one, and it is def­i­nitely cor­rect. The only thing I would add is that DP focus on ethnic Israel while CT focus on spir­i­tual Israel (those united to Christ).

  13. Keith
    Mar 29th 2007

    A unsub­stan­ti­ated fit? Inter­est­ing asser­tion, Chris!
    Anyway, I know that you know full well what jabs I’m refer­ring to.

  14. Kari
    Apr 17th 2007

    I con­tinue to strug­gle to wrap my mind around what it means to be Dis­pen­sa­tional, although that dif­fi­culty may be due to dif­fer­ences between Clas­si­cal and Pro­gres­sive forms of thought (which I wasn’t aware of). I totally agree with Amanda’s state­ment that God’s pur­pose is His glory.

    God chose Israel for a very spe­cial pur­pose, which was to be the means through which He would bless the whole world. There are numer­ous ref­er­ences that Israel holds a spe­cial place in God’s heart, and I believe that there are indi­ca­tions that, at some point, there will be a number of Jews who will come to know Jesus as their long awaited Mes­siah. The idea that “the Church” will have to be rap­tured away before this can happen makes no sense to me, which I think is the Tim LaHaye per­spec­tive [can anyone explain to me how he jus­ti­fies that view scrip­turally?]

    God was already in the process of draw­ing non-​Jews to Him­self in the Old Tes­ta­ment. Some of those people are listed in the geneal­ogy of Jesus. In Romans 11 Paul talks about how the gen­tiles are grafted in branches, and he says of Israel “how much more read­ily will these, the nat­ural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!” It seems to me that the nat­ural branches are refer­ring to ethnic Israel and that “the elect” are whomever God has chosen, regard­less of race.

    Although I believe that Israel is pre­cious to God I do not equate “Israel” directly with the “State of Israel”. From what I have been able to deter­mine, the “State of Israel” was estab­lished and is pre­dom­i­nantly run by people who have a sec­u­lar (and in some cases athe­is­tic) mind­set. It would appear that there are some com­mon­al­i­ties between Israel today and at the time of Jesus’ first appear­ing in that much of lead­er­ship is more con­cerned about pro­mot­ing their own agenda than hon­or­ing God. I do not know what Paul means when he says “all Israel will be saved”, but I am con­tent with the thought that God will accom­plish His pur­poses, regard­less of what anyone else thinks will happen.

  15. Chris
    Apr 17th 2007

    @Kari: Good thoughts as always! Do you buy into the “spiritual Israel” (the sum total of the all the elect)?

  16. Kari
    Apr 19th 2007

    I tend to be leery of labels that do not appear in scrip­ture and so the term “Spiritual Israel” (in the con­text in which I gen­er­ally see it used) makes me a little uncom­fort­able. Paul goes into some detail about God’s rela­tion­ship with Israel in Romans 9-11, with fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion in Gala­tians 3-4 about how Gen­tiles fit into the pic­ture. The sense that I have is that Israel main­tains a spe­cial place in God’s heart and that the people that God has chosen as His own who are not of “ethnic Israel” He grafts into Israel, and those that are part of “ethnic Israel” whom He has not chosen, He cuts out. I sup­pose you could say then that those remain­ing are the sum total of the all the elect, but I have seen people use the term “Spiritual Israel” to sup­port Replace­ment The­ol­ogy, which car­ries in it the idea that “the Church” has replaced Israel in God’s Heart, and that all the promises that God made to Israel in the Old Tes­ta­ment no longer apply to Israel, but instead can be directly applied to “the Church”. I think that one has to be care­ful about making any assump­tions that in some way revises what God has revealed to us through His Word.

  17. Chris
    Apr 20th 2007

    Did you read my arti­cle: “Did the Church Replace Israel?“

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