What is the Church Age?
An “age” is an historical period of time or an era. Some historians divide human history into many epochs and name them according to their defining characteristics: Middle Ages, Modern Age, Postmodern Age, etc. Biblical history, too, can be divided into different eras. When those divisions emphasize God’s interaction with His creation, we call them…
What is dispensational premillennialism?
Premillennialism as a system is primarily based on a literal method of biblical interpretation. The main premise of premillennialism is that Jesus will literally return to the earth before (pre) the millennium begins and that He himself will inaugurate and rule over it. Premillennialists can be divided into two groups with respect to their central…
What is the dispensation of Human Government?
After God had worked face to face with the first humans, Adam and Eve (the dispensation of Innocence, Genesis 1:28—3:19), they sinned, and all mankind became a fallen race living on a cursed planet. Conditions changed, and all subsequent families on earth were to do good based on what they knew to be right (the…
What is postmillennialism?
Postmillennialism is an interpretation of Revelation chapter 20 which sees Christ’s second coming as occurring after the “millennium,” a golden age or era of Christian prosperity and dominance. The term includes several similar views of the end times, and it stands in contrast to premillennialism (the view that Christ’s second coming will occur prior to…
Does the fact that dispensational theology is a recent development argue against its legitimacy?
While certain aspects of dispensational theology have been present throughout church history, the system of dispensational theology was not formalized until John Nelson Darby began teaching it in the mid-1800s. Dispensational theology first became popular in the days of Cyrus Scofield with the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in the early 1900s. The better…
What is mid-Acts dispensationalism?
Dispensationalism is a theological system that recognizes various ages, or dispensations, ordained by God to instruct mankind on how to rightly relate to Him. Classic dispensationalism typically sees seven dispensations, starting with the age of innocence in the Garden of Eden and ending with the age of the millennial kingdom. The current age, called the…
What are the seven dispensations?
Dispensationalism is a method of interpreting history that divides God’s work and purposes toward mankind into different periods of time. Usually, there are seven dispensations identified, although some theologians believe there are nine. Others count as few as three or as many as thirty-seven dispensations. In this article, we will limit ourselves to the seven…
What is dispensationalism and is it biblical?
A dispensation is a way of ordering things—an administration, a system, or a management. In theology, a dispensation is the divine administration of a period of time; each dispensation is a divinely appointed age. Dispensationalism is a theological system that recognizes these ages ordained by God to order the affairs of the world. Dispensationalism has…
What is New Israel?
Merriam-Webster defines New Israel as “the Christian fellowship of believers: the Christian Church.” This definition would be disputed by many evangelical believers and scholars. Is the church really the new Israel? And, if so, what is to become of the old Israel? What about Jewish believers today? The relationship of Israel and the Church has…
What is new covenant theology?
New covenant theology is best described as a hermeneutical principle, or an interpretative grid through which one reads and interprets the Scriptures. As a hermeneutical principle, it stands as a bridge between dispensational theology and covenant theology. That is not to say that new covenant theology has intentionally set itself up between dispensational theology and…