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Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
Since this older thread has been resurrected, I thought to add something regarding dispensationalism that we've discussed on another Christian forum I'm on in some length. Amillennialists purport that dispensationalism wasn't around before it was popularized in the 1800s. This is not the case. The idea can be found in many early church writers including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and to a degree Augustine. But it seems that after the RCC firmly took over much of the church, amillennialism was the basic theme for over a thousand years.
See here: Dispensationalism And The Early Church Fathers |
I’m going to politely object here. While early Church writers may have had flavors of what is now known today as dispensationalism, this theological system wasn’t a formal system until Darby. Darby defined the dispensations and presented how the Bible should be viewed through this theological system.
None of the early church writers or leaders that we know of used what is known as the dispensational framework to read the Bible . They (as noted in the article) saw different ways God interacted with man and commented on it, however they never formalized an entire system of biblical interpretation.
It’s important to point this out, because the Recovery will have you believe that this framework is something that has always existed, it’s a recovered truth. However, it simply isn’t and was formalized in the last 200 years. During my time in the recovery I never knew that there was other systems of biblical interpretation. I never knew that the recovery’s view of secret rapture was a fringe belief, I never knew that the recovery’s view of Israel being separate from the church was not a widely held belief.
While salvation doesn’t hinge on what theological system you use, a lot of other beliefs do. Specifically eschatology, the only way certain end time beliefs work is if they are viewed through specific theological system lenses. When beliefs about the end times dictate a huge portion of your Christian life (being an over comer, secret rapture) it’s good practice to understand where that lens comes from. With the Lords Recovery, it’s a lens that is relatively new in the grand scheme of things.