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]