Dispensationalism

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So we turn to the last two options in Vlach’s list:

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Is Christ’s Blood Divided?

I want to begin with two more quotes from Beacham. I should say first that I think his article is an excellent presentation of Option 1. On page 22 of his paper he states:

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Gentiles and Their Connection to the New Covenant

What has proven to be a thorny issue for Dispensationalists is the relation of the Church/Gentiles to the New Covenant. Since the only explicit NC text in Jeremiah 31:31-34 (repeated in Hebrews 8) identifies Israel and Judah as parties to the NC with God, the contention is that the Church is associated with the NC in a less direct way, or perhaps not connected at all! This brings us back to Mike Vlach’s list which we reproduced in Part One.

Just yesterday, I preached about the New Covenant. Some church traditions celebrate Covenant Thursday on the day before Good Friday, which would be 09 April this year. I chose to hold our celebration before Palm Sunday, to kick off the Easter season. This way, before the Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter services … we remind ourselves what’s so special about the New Covenant.

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Putting Some More Passages Together

Deuteronomy 30 describes a time when God Himself will convert His people:

“If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.

Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.

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Last time we looked at Isaiah 42 and saw that Jesus is being referred to prophetically as a “covenant.” I insert here that when Isaiah 42:6 says “I will give You as a covenant to the people” it is not saying that Christ will be like a covenant; it is not a simile. It is better to read it as as an identification. It is like saying, “This knife can be used as a can-opener” or “I will give my van as a moving truck.” The knife is the can-opener and the van is the moving vehicle.

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We all know that sin stops us from inheriting the kind of world God the Creator envisaged for us—a world of peace, joy, righteousness, justice, and glory, not to mention communion with the Lord Himself.

God set the world in motion, permitting the Fall and the devastation that it has brought in its wake. He made covenants with man, signposts and promises to the better world that He still intends to bring about:

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When we examine the clear New Covenant passage in Jeremiah 31:31ff, we see that verses 31 and 32 name Israel and Judah as parties. We see also that it concerns the future (“the days are coming”), and that the NC will supersede in some way the Sinai Covenant. It is crucial to ask what the main promise of this covenant is, which is not difficult to ascertain. The New Covenant in the chapter concerns an internal or spiritual change in the elect of Israel.

I have been thinking for a while that it might be a good idea to write about the New Covenant. Although there seems to be little confusion about it in the minds of Jeremiah, Paul, or the author of Hebrews, it has become something of a bugbear among Dispensationalists. In this series I want to interact a little with their issues, but I also want to provide my understanding of the New Covenant, which, as it happens, adds one more alternative to the dizzying list already occupying the thought of many good men and women.

One of the biggest debates among Christians is how to interpret the Bible. Liberals accuse conservatives of taking the Bible too literally. Conservatives accuse liberals of not taking the Bible seriously enough, often by declaring controversial sections to be figurative. That seems to be a handy way to avoid passages that teach what you don’t want to believe.