Introduction
Theologian Vern S. Poythress wrote, “Theological systems, whether dispensationalist, covenantal, Calvinist, Arminian, or even modernist, have a profound influence on the way we approach a given [biblical] text.” There is no portion of scripture that is more influenced by the theological system of dispensationalist than that of biblical prophecy, particularly in the area of God’s redemptive plan from for humanity. The purpose of this essay is to establish that an appropriate understanding of biblical eschatology can best be achieved through a dispensational theological perspective.
Covenantalism
To gain a clearer understanding of the tenets of dispensational eschatology, it is necessary to investigate the main non-dispensational perspective, covenantalism. In discussing the foundational differences between dispensational and non-dispensational eschatological system, Dr. Dan Mitchell suggests the main contrast lies in the hermeneutical methodologies each maintains. Covenantalism views prophetic revelation deductively by first regarding the fulfillment of the prophecy and then retroactively constructing how the prophecy was fulfilled. Specifically, covenant eschatological interprets Old Testament prophecies through the lens of a New Testament Christocentric perspective which dictates that all prophecies be fulfilled in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and the church. This forced hermeneutical perspective requires a great deal of allegorizing of the prophecies for it to maintain any semblance of cohesion. Dwight Pentecost described this overly allegorized method as “interpreting a literary text that regards the literal sense as the vehicle for a secondary, more spiritual and more profound sense.” The...
... middle of paper ...
...e sought to redeem, both Jew and gentile.
Conclusion
It would be naïve at best and blasphemous at worse to say that any theological construct could fully capture the full purpose and workings of God, especially concerning His redemptive plan for humanity. Clearly, there is eschatological construct that is without flaws. However, the further one goes away from the plain sense of the Scriptures the more error it accrues. Since no human can know the purposes of God apart from divine revelation, it is essential to center all endeavors of understanding God’s Word, the Bible. By allowing the Bible to speak for itself and thereby constructing a theological schema according to it, one can reduce the risk of misinterpretation. Likewise, Progressive Dispensationalism is not without flaws and imperfections, but it allows the Scriptures to speak for itself.
LaHaye, Tim, and Ed Hindson. The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy. Eugene, OR.: Harvest House Publishers, 2004.
One of the most distinct feature of dispensationalist view is the millennial kingdom in Revelation. The thousand year reign of Christ will take place on the earth. Based on grammatical-historical exegesis of chapter 20, Thomas provides
There is so much mystified confusion surrounding the will of God in today’s society. It is evident in the ways that people use the term that views about it differ widely; there is even contradiction in two things the same person might say. It is because of the recommendation of my pastor and others that I decided to read The Will of God, written by Leslie D. Weatherhead.
N.T Wright (2008) stated that “When we read the scriptures as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation” (p.281). In this statement, the author reveals a paradigm of scriptural interpretation that exists for him as a Christian, theologian, and profession and Bishop. When one surveys the entirety of modern Christendom, one finds a variety of methods and perspectives on biblical interpretation, and indeed on the how one defines the meaning in the parables of Jesus. Capon (2002) and Snodgrass (2008) offer differing perspectives on how one should approach the scriptures and how the true sense of meaning should be extracted. This paper will serve as a brief examination of the methodologies presented by these two authors. Let us begin, with an
According to Peter Eicher’s standard monograph on this topic, the concept of self-revelation is to be rated as the ‘Principle of modern theology’. Despite far-reaching differences in terms of approach and development, this basic concept is shared by the most heterogeneous modern theologians, such as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, Richard Niebuhr, Jürgen Moltmann, Eberhard Jüngel, and Wolfhart Pannenberg. A more or less balanced composite of their different approaches is part of every undergraduate introduction to contemporary theology, as articulated, for example, in Alasdair McGrath’s Christian theology: “God has taken the initiative through a process of self-disclosure, which reaches its climax and fulfilment in the history of Jesus of Nazareth.“ However, despite the modern inclination to project the concept of self-revelation onto de-contextualized Bible verses such as John 14:9, self-revelation is anything but biblical in origin. In spite of this, only a few scholars are aware of how modern theology came to adopt this concept; it is adopted somewhat unreflectively. This is ironic, particularly in the context of modern biblical studies.
Therefore, we could call Jeremiah 31:1-14 an eschatological piece of hope. Connecting with Jeremiah 30-33, the theme of hope is so strangely new that Brueggemann calls this prophetic message a “theological leap” of hope beyond “Deuteronomic symmetry.” This hope does not depend on Israel’s repentance, but “Yahweh’s singular intention.”
"EXPLORING THEOLOGY 1 & 2." EXPLORING THEOLOGY 1 2. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014.
One of the most compelling attributes about the Bible is that it is full of prophecy. Christ Himself fulfilled three hundred and fifty-one of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. One in particular is the prophecy of the seventy years in Daniel 9:24-27. Here we look not only to the foretelling of events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ and to the future of today, but also into the authority of the authorship of God’s sovereignty. When we examine the prophecy given to Daniel by the angel Gabriel, we start to see the time frame from which God gives redemption to mankind. But where does the hourglass begin to turn? Does it say what will happen in between the times? Let’s begin to systematically dissect the scriptures to find out.
The first biblical passage that speaks of man practically shouts that he is created in the image of God. Evangelical scholarship on the image of God has mainly concentrated on the Genesis texts, which has often led to speculation about the ontological identity of the image. However, there is a much richer reading which does not care so much to ask, “What is the image of God?” but “What does it mean to carry the image of God?” This reading draws from the witness of both the Old and New Testaments, discovering that the restoration of the image becomes a central theme in the New Testament, taking on eschatological significance.
In studying prophecy, we not only learn something about God and the future, but also something about ourselves. By nature, we humans are simultaneously both curious and apathetic creatures. We long to know, just not enough to make us uncomfortable or to change our routine. This is part of the challenge we face as we approach this area of God’s truth. We don’t just want to know. We also want to grow.
Given the abundance and variety of voices, it is important for us to be self-aware of our “interpretative tendencies”, interpretative frameworks, presuppositions, and of our own social-cultural-scientific-psychological present location. We bring to our interpretations our own subjectivity. Thus, when we do biblical theology it is important to help readers understand where we locate ourselves since our contributions to scholarship are “product of historically bound assumptions” (Lambert, 4). It is important to be critically self-aware since we are all product of our own time and context.
Trible, P. (1973). ‘Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation’. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 41 (1), pp.30-48.
Eschatology(end time) is that the doctrine of the last thing. It appears in the final section of faith and organized theologies. It has a big role on how we should live our lives and what are to expect to occur in the future. Soteriology(salvation) is that the doctrine of salvation,this christian theology which treats of christ for the world. Christianity believe that to get soteriology you must salvate by grace alone. These two theologies relate one to each other because at the end of our lifetime we must have and earn salvation to live the immortal (heavenly) life after death.
Exegesis and hermeneutics are the two main processes of studying the Bible as well as all of its content not only academically but philosophically as well. Exegesis is the study of the bible with the emphasis on the actual text. On the other hand, Hermeneutics is philosophical and reasoning study of the Bible focusing on the process of interpretation. However, this chapter stated that multiple approaches are used simultaneously. We need to be very cautious when we use other people’s hermeneutical assumptions and not a...
Levine, Amy –Jill and Douglas Knight. The Meaning of the Bible: What Jewish and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us. New York: HarperOne, 2011