Category: Theology

In our last essay, we noted the origins of the term “Fundamentalism” in the series on the Fundamentals published from 1909 onward and then connected to the Niagara Conferences.  It was a scholarly and amazing series that included Orthodox Evangelicals of all stripes.  All can benefit from reading these articles. 

However, as Fundamentalists lost the battles for the mainline denominations, as higher critical and Darwinian nostrums gained more and more currency, scholars say that a reactionary negativism became more and more dominant.  World War I left many with a great pessimism about social influence.  Yes, they would say, we have to make a living in this world.  However, to really seek to better society was considered a waste of time.  Yes, if people became believers, in a limited way they could have some positive influence, but the world was moving toward the last days.  The great apostasy in the denominations was upon us and the Anti-Christ would soon appear.  Opting out of cultural engagement became dominant.  It is debatable that Wheaton College, the bastion of Evangelical arts and science education, ever went so far.  However, some began to push back hard on the trends that dominated Fundamentalism.  Legalism, cultural opting out, and the pre-tribulation rapture as a litmus test of faithfulness was more and more seen to be aberrant.  Carl F. H. Henry, the theological mentor to Rev. Billy Graham wrote about this in his important 1947 book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism.  Its opting out was given a great critique.  (1947).  Arthur Homes, Wheaton’s most important philosopher, and many think its greatest professor in the last half of the 20^th century used to say we had lost 100 years of cultural influence.  I actually think it was only 50 or 60, but he was tracing attitudes in Darbyite influence for 100 years.  Wasn’t Wheaton founded to both spread the Gospel and to be an influence in cultural formation in all spheres?  It is no accident that Wheaton was an influence to transcend Dispensational Fundamentalism. 

A group of young men decided to face the best scholarship that liberalism had to offer.  They would defend Evangelical Orthodoxy in the face of liberalism.  They studied at schools such as Harvard, Boston University, and Basel in Switzerland.  Such names as Edward John Carnell, the great Christian apologist who became President of Fuller Theological Seminar in Pasadena, California, Bernard Ramm, the Baptist scholar, Kenneth Kantzer Wheaton, and then of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, who studied at Basel and Harvard, and Arthur Holmes from Northwestern.  Reformed Scholars were also very important.  Some argued that Dispensational Fundamentalism as it finally hardened into its mid-century orientations, was actually aberrant and cultic.  

The words of Edward John Carnell were amazing and quite painful to all of us who were involved in our young years. Simplistic theological approaches prevailed.  Sometimes doing biblical theology is not easy. There are different emphases in the Bible and not everything fits a simple black and with the system.  Fundamentalism is given to black and white thinking. Carnell in his book, The Case for Orthodox Theology, called Fundamentalist Dispensationalism “Orthodoxy gone cultic.” Here is a list from Carnell and others. 

1. Inability to effectively engage the larger culture and become salt and light in it.  Since the world is going downhill, we are to just get people saved and into the lifeboat.  The culture is part of a sinking ship, the world. 
2. Fear of those who are not speaking the same language and towing the same black and white thinking. 
3. A critical spirit that easily sallies off in tirades of criticism of those who are not in the same camp.
4. A fear of contamination.  One may be holy, but if one connects to one that is not sufficiently separated, then one becomes unholy by association 
5. A sectarian spirit that easily separates from those seen as not theologically pure enough and not sufficiently holy (not by the Bible commands but extra standards of holiness in the Fundamentalist Camp.)  This is part of a hyper-critical spirit that heresy hunts and constantly looks for error that is greatly feared.  Really the Fundamentalist is insecure.   
6. Emphasis on doctrinal points that do not hold up to sound scholarship. For example, the pre-tribulation rapture is a litmus test.  Its rejection is thought to be the first step toward liberalism.
7. An inability to understand the views of others and to engage them with respect shows that they have first been understood.  Fundamentalism is characterized by refuting straw men and misrepresentation of the other.
8. Skepticism and rejection of new insights, directions, and methods. 
9. Difficulty in engaging others who are not perceived as people with whom God may be working. If they are not born again.

We are so very glad that Evangelical Orthodoxy is moving beyond Fundamentalist Dispensationalism.  There is still a way to go. 

This essay is part one of two essays on Dispensational Fundamentalism.

In the last half of the 19^th century, critical approaches to the Bible began to make inroads into several of the mainline Protestant denominations.  Their leaders did not deny the basic creedal confessions of Christianity or reject the historic moral consensus of Western Christian culture.  That would not happen to a large degree until the last half of the 20^th century, but those who were weak in confession were allowed to remain.  Conservative churchmen saw that it was only a matter of time and apostasy would come.  The Bible as God’s inerrant Word was rejected by many.  Princeton Seminary held out until the 1930s.  Central to the decline were higher critical approaches to the Pentateuch.  It was claimed that Moses did not write the Pentateuch but that it was a product of a long development of material that was added from the 9^th to the 4^th century.  They saw the movement from more primitive material to a more advanced understanding in the book of Deuteronomy and the Prophets.  The New Testament would also be given a critical evaluation.  There was a quest for the historical Jesus and only what survived the critical evaluation really was from Jesus.   Some also embraced a social Gospel where social action was not an extension of true faith in a divine Jesus and the influence of the Prophets, but social action replaced supernatural faith and conversion.  The theory of evolution was being embraced by some Christian leaders and evolutionary ideas of development from George Hagel, the German idealist philosopher, were influencing Christian scholars. 

From 1878 to 1901 a group of scholars met at the Niagara Fall Conferences in New York and created the Niagra Statement of Faith.  This was a very influential statement and was embraced by many denominations, Bible Colleges, Christian liberal arts colleges, and seminaries.  I noted this when I led a study on the doctrinal confession for the Student Council at Wheaton College in 1969.  It was in my view a good statement but a little too rigid on a few things.  It was based on the old Niagara Statement. 

From 1910 to 1915 a group of scholars worked on an historic set of essays entitled The Fundamentals A Testimony to the Truth.  The original essays were 12 volumes but later condensed to four which are available today.  The authors were like a who’s who of conservative Protestants from many denominations.  They included Dispensationalists and Reformed and other thinkers.  The essays are worthy of study today. 

However, a strange thing happened.  With the pessimism that resulted from World War I, the Dispensational version of Fundamentalism appealed to more and more people. The clear and well-written notes of the Schofield Reference Bible (1909) were very appealing.  The appeal to a literal hermeneutic seemed to be a corollary of Fundamentalism though the meaning of literal interpretation in Dispensationalism was very simplistic and not evenly applied. The social Gospel was not only rejected as a false Gospel but social engagement in the culture was also rejected.  In the most amazing way, Dispensationalism more and more dominated the Fundamentalist movement.  Yes, the Reformed thinkers were still important but became more and more a minority.   My spiritual father at Wheaton College, Dr. Evan Welsh, a graduate of Princeton Seminary, lived through this period and observed as the Dispensationalist variety of Fundamentalism became more and more dominant.  Many rejected cultural engagement.  The famous Wheaton Philosopher professor, Dr. Arthur Holmes, used to say regarding cultural enragement, that we had lost 100 years.  

This disengagement and turning inward included a reactive orientation that became more and more narrow.  One sees this narrowness previously in the founder of Dispensationalism, J. N. Darby who led the closed brethren. They would take communion with only other closed brethren.  The famous Chinese saint, Watchman Nee was originally Closed Brethren, but left this movement to embrace fellowship with all true believers and was Open Brethren.  This narrowness became deeply rooted and even engaging areas of study were considered dangerous and rejected.  Suspicion was very strong and led to splits in conservative denominations. 

For Dispensational Fundamentalists, Dispensationalism was Fundamentalism and visa versa. For much of the Evangelical world, it was so.  The manifestation of this in 1957 was the Billy Graham Crusade in New York.  Because Billy Graham had church leaders on the Platform giving support to his crusade, some of whom had questionable views, Fundamentalist leaders like Jack Wyrtzen of dear memory rejected Billy Graham and separated from him.   Graham was vilified.  This harsh judgmental spirit became deeply rooted.  Thankfully much of Evangelicalism has now come out from this.  Many Evangelicals did not want to be called Fundamentalists.  This was the case with Wheaton College during my years there in the late 1960s.  However, there is still a Fundamentalist segment of Evangelicalism, and they still unfairly censor and judge.  Disagreement within the boundaries of Orthodoxy is occasion for severe condemnation.  We will pick up on these themes in the next essay. 

As a Wheaton Philosophy major and then an Assistant to the Professor of Philosophy of Religion, I wrestled with what was called the mind-body problem.  The atheists in philosophy and brain science were more and more saying that the mind and brain were the same thing.  The mind was simply a matter of brain states.  The mind or soul did not transcend the brain.  When the brain is dead, the person ceases to be.  The well-known atheist analytic philosopher J. C. Ryle argued against the idea of the transcendent mind as the “ghost in the machine.”  They were less clear on just what the mind was since mind language, mental pictures, ideas and so much more can not be described in terms of brain states.  As the famous German philosopher, Martin Heidegger argued, one cannot reduce the “lived experience” and the terms in which we describe it to the terms of physics and chemistry.  Yet the problem remains.  What happens to the person, the mind, consciousness, or soul when a person dies or when an old person becomes senile.  

I dealt with this on a personal level when my dear grandmother began to lose some of her mental capacities.  Soon after my mother visited, on the same day, my mother would talk to her by phone, and then she would ask why my mother had not visited in such a long time!   After her fall, a broken hip and hospitalization took a toll and greater senility resulted.  From 1971-1972, near Wheaton, I worked as a cook in a nursing home and saw senility up close.  A dear Baptist woman, Anna Giesfield, used to come into the kitchen in her wheelchair and offer to help me.  She said lots of guests at the resort were coming for dinner, and we needed to get ready for dinner.  I assured her that we had it all under control and she was there to enjoy and relax.  This was sweet senility.  However, others just moaned and seemed lost, not knowing where they were or what to do.  Was their brain deterioration proof that the mind/soul or whatever was so dependent and part of the brain that both were dying together, gradually ceasing to be?   As a follower of Yeshua and a believer in his resurrection, I knew that somehow the person transcended physical death and awaited the resurrection, but I did not have good enough answers.   

About two decades ago, a brain physiologist, Mario Beauregard, wrote a book called the spiritual brain which proved that operations of the mind and soul transcended the brain.  The reality of quantum physics also pointed to events that had no brute physical causation explanation where events at one place miles away from another place had a parallel effect there with no seeming physical connection.  

However, in recent years, I believe I have more clarity.  Two things have added to this clarity.  First is the extensive literature on what is called Near Death Experiences, (NDEs).  I call the most amazing of them death and resurrection experiences.  The best book I know on this is by John Burke, Imagine Heaven.   The second is the literature of a new movement inspired by Jim Wilder, who calls himself a neuro-theologian.  Two books present his views well, The Other Half of Church by Michael Hendricks and Jim Wilder, and Rare Leadership by Wilder and Marcus.  

The central thesis of Wilder is that we must get a hold of new research into the distinctions of the left and right brain.   The left brain is the logic information processing part of the brain, and the right brain is the intuitive, fast track, immediate processing and response part of the brain.  Much of our immediate behavior processes through the right brain and decides before the left brain gets started.  If we are to disciple character, then we must disciple the right brain.  Wilder presents an amazing outline of brain responses and the different parts of the brain that do different things in that amazing fast-speed response.  However, though Wilder says that spirit transcends the brain, and he and the Life Model Works movement which he inspired is very strong on hearing the voice of the Spirit and gasping God speaking to us, Spirit to spirit, one could wrongly conclude that the books are teaching that we are our brains.  

Here is where the NDE literature and John Burke come in.  This literature proves to an open-minded person that the soul transcends the brain and that God can separate the soul and the brain.  In an NDE persons experience themselves leaving the body and having total and heightened awareness.  They describe the scene where their dead body lies.  They accurately describe the room, what the doctors were doing, nearby rooms, if drowning, those around the pool, or in a car accident in the same detailed types of description.  They sometimes accurately see events happening in the areas nearby.  There is no naturalistic explanation for this.  They often then go through a tunnel and if they are followers of Yeshua,  end up in Heaven.  They see Jesus and loved ones and have conversations, sometimes with amazing and accurate information.  Sometimes those who are not followers of Jesus go to heaven, but others go to Hell.  They are given an opportunity and a choice to go back.   They travel back, enter into their body as they come to.  The pain resumes whereas out of the body they were gloriously pain-free.  They remember their experience and return to recover with new faith and to live with a new faith-confidence.  There are a plethora of such documented experiences.

So how do we put Burke and Wilder together?  There is a way.   Both are so important.  We learn that to interact and have authority and affect things in this physical realm, we must have a physical body.  This does seem to be biblical.  When we leave the body our time of major influence in this world is over though there is something to the fact that we are in communion with those who died and there are experiences with those who have died from time to time (J. B. Phillips, the translator, with C. S. Lewis).  Our direct experiences with God and of revelation do transcend the physical brain.  It is my view that we should see the brain as the manifestation in this world of the soul.  The brain is the most central and important manifestation of the soul in this world.  We must have an earth body not just the part of the person who does appear in heaven as if physical but without an earth body. I prefer to use the word soul over the spirit to differentiate the spirit as the deepest part of us where we have intuitive and direct communion with God.  In the Bible, the two terms are not clearly distinguished, but I believe there is a tendency in this direction.  Plus, the soul is not only manifest in the brain, but though that is primary, but in the larger body (See, Babette Rothchild, The Body Remembers).  

The soul/spirit together is the transcendent center of our human existence.  As such it is no ghost in the machine but is a differentiated complex reality.  The brain has 171 billion cells.  Why should we think that the soul is any less complex? This is a thought experiment, not a scientific assertion, but why should we not think that the soul would have 171 billion soul cells parallel to the brain cells plus connection to body cells beyond the brain.   Therefore, what happens when a person dies, or becomes senile, or has a death and resurrection experience?  I believe that in the death and resurrection experience or when a person dies God separates the brain and body from the soul totally.  However, in senility or brain images, nothing of the soul ceases to be, however, that aspect of the soul that gets through on the physical plane of life in this world no longer has access. The soul is fully there but part of it cannot get through.  Sometimes some relief for the injured takes place by other parts of the brain developing the functions.  When the brain deteriorates the soul just cannot get through.  However, until then soul and the physical are so totally integrated that we cannot distinguish them.  We are fully psycho-physical beings.  We must think in terms of other dimensions, multi-dimensional thinking.  The soul is integrated into the brain but is also other dimensional.  We also access the soul through the brain. When we train the brain we train the soul.

Then, in addition, in this world the brain and soul are so closely, almost totally joined and integrated, you reach the soul through the brain.  If you train the brain (Wilder’s term) you are training the soul.  In this space-time physical world, we cannot distinguish them except in the supernatural realm of the Spirit and revelation or illumination. 

However, let us not think of the brain as the sum of the human personality.  Let us rather think of the soul as really there, as differentiated in functions as the brain, and as transcending the brain.  The brain and soul learn as one.  The brain responses are also soul responses.  Therefore, we speak of left-brain/soul and right brain/soul.  

I don’t know what my readers will think of this essay, but I can rest on this way of seeing things. It is the conclusion of many years of reflection.  

 

For 150 years Signs of the Times Prophecy Conferences were popular in Dispensational circles.  These conferences were especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s.  Some of the best teachers were from Dallas Theological Seminary (J. Dwight Pentecost and others). The conferences were very exciting because they gave evidence that Jesus was coming soon, and the rapture would take place.  

The paradox was the dispensational teaching that Jesus could come any moment and nothing, no sign of the times or prophetic fulfillment, needed to happen before the return of Jesus.  If so, then why were the signs of the times important?

The answer was that though no sign or prophetic fulfillment was a prerequisite, the situation of the World and the lineup of the nations showed a fulfillment to prove to us that Jesus was really, really was coming soon.  The sense of this was so vivid.  The conferences were used to motivate evangelism, since if his coming was so soon, then there was little time left to evangelism and see people saved before the rapture.  I recall the famous Dr. Charles J. Woodbridge, of dear memory, at Word of Life Camp and Conference Center saying that he thought we did not have more than ten years till the rapture.  As a young person, 17 years old, I did not want the Lord to come until I experienced marriage though the teaching was still very exciting to me. 

What were the signs?  Here are some.  The European Common Market had six nations, and it was predicted that it would expand to ten nations.   This was seen as the reconstituted Roman Empire predicted in Daniel 2, the ten toes of the great image upon which the stone falls and the image crumbles and becomes a great mountain.  Yeshua is the stone that falls on the toes. The toes are also the ten heads or crowns in other chapters.  The Common Market then expanded to ten nations.  There was great excitement.  But then there were 11, 12, and then the European Union with many more.  Now ten looked more symbolic than literal,  but this was still seen as Rome renewed though the geography was not the same as the Roman Empire. 

The Jewish people being reconstituted in the Land was a major sign of the times since in the Tribulation, after the Church was gone, Israel would be the center of God’s working in the world and the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom.  

The power of Russia was key since they were seen as the invading nation of Ezekiel 38 and 39. 

China was another sign since the book of Revelation speaks of 200 million coming from the East and only China could have a 200 million men army.  I note that no supply line could provide for such an army.  The text is not about a literal army, but that is how it was taken. 

The apostasy of the main line Protestant Churches and the World Council of Churches was another sign of the great falling away.  

Some of these conferences presented detailed information about invasions during the Tribulation and the details of wars and alignments. 

How can we respond to all this?  Yes, there are signs of the times that look like the coming of the Lord is nearer.  Israel is certainly the most noteworthy fulfillment of prophecy.   However, the Bible does not orient us to speculating on detailed fulfillments as if prophecy gives us detailed writing of world history ahead of time, though there are great prophetic words about the coming of the Antichrist and the line-up of the nations against Israel, the tribulation and opposition to the Body of the Messiah. The emphasis in the Bible is much more about moving history to the climax of his coming through completing the work of preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations and making Israel jealous. For that we need revival and unity in the Church (John 17:21).  Making Israel jealous is an eschatological (last days) task that leads to the return of Yeshua (Rom. 11:11-16)  

How do we deal with any moment return doctrine?  First, there is one text that is important among others.   It says, “You are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief.”  (I Thes. 4:5).   Does the Bible teach the any moment doctrine, or does it just teach the soon coming?   For the writers of the New Testament, His coming seemed soon.  It seems that God’s setup is such that every generation can point to enough things that it seems soon.  George Ladd argued in his classic The Blessed Hope, that any moment teaching is wrong and there can be fulfillments that come first. 

However, if one is still oriented to any moment coming, J. Barton Payne, the late and esteemed Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School, in his book The Imminent Appearing of Christ, argued that we will not see the prophetic prerequisites clearly until after the fact.  There is enough uncertainty always to think that there is yet prophecy to be fulfilled, and yet He can come any minute. Only after would we see that the fulfillment came.  

I am more oriented to Ladd’s view.  Prophecy or eschatology conferences could be a good thing if the emphasis is not on the details of the future events, but on the broad sweep of the teaching of the Bible on the preaching of the Gospel to the nations, revival, unity, and the lineup of the nations against Israel.  The issue is biblical balance. 

Michael Bates has written a very important book entitled Salvation by Allegiance Alone.  This is a presentation that is very counter to classical Dispensationalism.  Bate’s thesis is simple.  It is that the word range of the Greek word for faith used in the texts on salvation by faith includes the meaning of allegiance, a trusting allegiance.  If this is so, then the response to the Gospel is a decision of total allegiance.  

If we translate the familiar verses with the word allegiance, then we get a very different picture than usual  For example, “For by grace you are saved through allegiance, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph. 2:8)   Some have sought to overcome “easy believism” by translating faith as trust.  One enters a trusting relationship with Yeshua which implies obedience.  This is a good and possible translation.  Allegiance seems to be part of the word definition.  We can also translate, that “Wherefore being justified by allegiance, we have peace with God.”  When we are in allegiance with God we are saved and have peace.  Even John 3:16 which is sometimes translated as “trusts in Him” in Bates includes allegiance.  “For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son so whosoever “comes into allegiance with him” should not perish but have everlasting life.”  The kind of trust implied in John 3:16 is a trusting relationship that implies real allegiance. 

If Michael Bates is correct, this shatters the classic Dispensationalist view that one can be saved by believing while yet not living in obedience to Yeshua.   Such a person is not really in allegiance with Yeshua and is not saved.  Allegiance means obedience.  One may fall short, but when one’s heart is really to live in allegiance to Yeshua, that one is saved.  So, who is saved?  Those who are in allegiance with Yeshua and live in allegiance. Who is not saved?  Those who are not.  One’s denominational affiliation is not the issue.  One can believe things that Protestants find troubling.  However, Catholics or Orthodox Christians who are in allegiance to Yeshua are saved.  This is a simple and refreshing approach. 

George Ladd and Dallas Willard

When the Gospel is wrongly preached, there is often difficulty in motivating people to enter into discipleship.  Because J. N. Darby and Classical Dispensationalism separated the Gospel from discipleship, the idea of “cheap grace” in Bonhoeffer’s words is a serious problem.  People can be lulled into complacency thinking they will not come into judgment because there is no required repentance and no requirement to submit to Yeshua as Lord.  Is the Gospel a gospel of free grace that offers this kind of salvation?  Or is the grace offered a grace that enables a choice to submit to Jesus as Savior and Lord. 

In 1951, George Ladd’s book, Crucial Questions and the Kingdom of God was published.  Ladd broke from Dispensationalism and received intense criticism for doing so.  In subsequent writings, he established that the New Testament does not present two Gospels, the first is the Gospel of the Kingdom which was the good news of the offer of the Millennial Kingdom to Israel.  Because Israel refused this offer, it was said that this Gospel of the Kingdom is not now preached. It will again be offered to Israel during the tribulation after the Church is gone (raptured to heaven).  The second Gospel is the Gospel of Grace where salvation is offered to all people without works, repentance, or the Lordship of Jesus.  Ladd’s subsequent writings more powerfully refuted these wrong ideas.  Today we can say that Ladd’s theology or something similar is today the consensus of the Evangelical scholarly world. 

However, Ladd’s views and others that are similar are crucial for discipleship.  As we noted in an earlier article, the synoptic Gospels present the Kingdom as having come in an already but not yet way.  It is here and real and people are invited into it.  However, it is in a partial way.  The Kingdom will only come in fullness when Yeshua returns.  As such, one very powerful way to present the Gospel is to offer people the invitation to enter the Kingdom through the death and resurrection of Yeshua.  In so doing, they embrace being part of Kingdom community where everything in their lives is put in the right order. 

In Dallas Willard’s great book, The Divine Conspiracy, the Gospel of the Kingdom is presented as a powerful invitation for transformation.  The invitation is into the Kingdom under the Lordship of Yeshua and includes everlasting life. As such the disciple can now attain to living out the commandments of Yeshua.  Teaching to observe all of Yeshua’s commands is the course of discipleship that Yeshua commands in the last verses of Matthew.  For Darby, the commands of Yeshua and the Sermon on the Mount were part of the Dispensation of Law and are not the focus for believers today, but rather today the focus is on the teaching of the epistles.  This is very confusing in my view.  

When the Gospel is rightly preached, the person is oriented to be baptized and to enter into a course of discipleship.  This is very important.  The right presentation of the Gospel saves much pain and failure.  We don’t have to undo false ideas that can be embedded in the mind. 

I note again that Progressive Dispensationalists are getting past these distinctions.  However, we present the classical positions so one can pick up on where there is still an unfortunate influence of bad theology and recognize this influence in preaching, articles, videos, and books.  

Theologians in the history of Christianity came up with many different approaches to the Mosaic Covenant.  Sometimes with Antisemitic tropes the Mosaic Covenant, often called only the Mosaic Law, was presented as a punishment for the Jewish people because of their sin after leaving Egypt.  There was a negativity to this part of the Bible.  Yet, a rejection of the Mosaic writings as Scripture was defined as heresy.  Marcion represented this view in the second century and rejected the Old Testament as presenting a false God.  Yet, a negativity to the Mosaic Law was not uncommon though it was accepted as inspired Scripture. Thankfully, according to my reading of Church history, the basic thrust of the Church was to see the Mosaic Law as applicable in the New Covenant.  For example, Canon Law in the Catholic Church was informed by the Mosaic Law on many matters of morality and on standards for civil society.  Calvin was the clearest on this idea of application.  While teaching that the ceremonial part of the Law was now fulfilled and no longer applicable for our practice, he yet taught that the Law provided three crucial functions in the New Covenant Age.  Firstly, it provided a standard whereby people would be convicted of sin and see their need for salvation.  Secondly, it would be a guide for civil law.  Thirdly, it would be a tool of discipleship through the Spirit that would enable or empower obedience to its righteous standards. This general approach became common with Anglicans, Methodists, and many other streams.   As we noted in an earlier essay, J. N. Darby believed this approach was wrong – that the Church had confused Law and Grace.   

For Darby, the Mosaic Law provided Israel with a Dispensation of Law that was in profound contrast to the New Covenant Dispensation of Grace.  As such, the Mosaic Law presented Israel with the challenge to seek to be saved by living by or obeying the Law.  Of course, Israel would fail and hence would be prepared for salvation by grace over against the quest of salvation by law.  Darby was right that no one could be saved by striving to keep the Law by our fleshy efforts.  However, was that what the Mosaic writings really were fostering?  Darby’s negative approach to the Mosaic writings was close to Marcion in some ways while yet seeing the Hebrew Bible as Scripture and the God of Israel as the one true God.  Some Dispensationalists still have Darby’s view today and negativity is very common as well in popular Christianity due to Darby’s influence to this day. 

However, we now know that Darby was wrong.  Studies on the cultural context for the Mosaic writings have revolutionized our understanding.  In 1969 when studying under Dr. Samuel Schultz at Wheaton College, I was presented with his book Deuteronomy, the Gospel of Love.  In 1974 Dr. Schultz published The Gospel of Moses in the year I graduated from McCormick Seminary.  I was quite astonished as Dr. Schultz presented the evidence that the Mosaic Covenant material was to be seen first as Gospel and not Law. After accepting God’s offer of grace and love, Israel was to live in obedient gratitude.  This was the same as the pattern of the New Covenant.  Moses was Gospel in pre-New Covenant form.  Dr. Schultz was able to draw from earlier studies, George Mendenhall of the University of Michigan and Meredith Kline of Westminster Seminary and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.  Kline summarized Mendenhall’s work in his Treaty of the Great King (1963).   So, what did they show?

It was that the Mosaic Covenant material was in the form of ancient Middle Eastern or Near Eastern treaties that presented a treaty from the ruling king to a vassal nation as covenants of grace, not deserved, with great benefits, but which required submission to the rule of the King and his law.  Of course, all nations have civil law, and the Mosaic Covenant provides that civil law under God as the King.  Kline and now confirmed more recently in the 21st century by  Kenneth Kitchen, show that the book of Deuteronomy especially fits the exact pattern of the Hittite Vassal treaties discovered in the late 1940s.  This pattern is a covenant of grace and constantly affirms in the content that Israel’s salvation was not due to their self-righteousness or good works but only due to God’s grace and love.  The Ten Commandments as well are a mini Covenant of Grace beginning with the announcement of God’s salvation by grace. The first words are not the first command.  Blood sacrifices show that Israel could not be perfect according to law-keeping.  That was never an option. Rather, God required a basic faithfulness and a heart toward God and provided for Israel’s shortcomings including providing for each individual. 

So why did Israel fail?  There are many reasons.  Despite being a covenant of grace, the Mosaic order was not powerful enough to overcome the sinful tendencies of the nation, though there were some periods of obedience.  The New Covenant is a covenant of greater grace and power.  It also requires higher obedience (Matthew 5-7).  The universal standards from Moses apply in the New Covenant.  Also, the pattern of life in Sabbath and Feasts also applies since they recount God’s gracious history with Israel and provide a cultural and national identity for Israel. 

Much of what we today call social justice can only be well dealt with through the Mosaic writings.  The New Covenant Scriptures do not address all these issues but assume the applicability of the Mosaic writings.  It is clear again that we must get beyond Dispensationalism.