Category Archives: John Nelson Darby

The Higher Logic of Dispensationalism: An Antidote in Dogmatics

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Dispensationalism is a product, historically, of the Fundamentalist reaction to the ingress of Liberal theology into the halls of the revivalist and evangelical churches. The Fundamentalist movement, particularly in the late 19th early 20th century, allowed the anti-supranaturalist or naturalist theologians (mainly of German hue) to dictate the terms under which Christian theology felt compelled to develop within. Based on this capitulation, fundamentalist theologians sought to counteract the findings, say of a higher biblical criticism, of the type that saw errors in Scripture, rejected the miracles, rejected the deity of Christ, so on and so forth, by asserting and arguing the obverse. This is where we get 20th century doctrines like biblical inerrancy from; creationism versus evolutionism etc. Fundamentalism is really just a correspondence to its predecessor founded in post-Enlightenment rationalism. It cedes ground to the come of age modernity that the higher critics moved and breathed within.

But, even after such a brief and oversimplified sketch, how does this relate to my initial claim that dispensationalism is a particular product of a reaction to the in-roads that liberal higher criticism had made into the sphere of biblical studies? I think the logic is simple: the dispensationalists, along with the fundamentalists, counter to the terms they were presented with by the higher critics, particularly their manhandling of the text of Holy Scripture, was to say: okay, well look at all of these biblical prophecies that have been and are currently being fulfilled in history and the contemporaneous. Dispensationalism is an apologetic for a doctrine of biblical inerrancy. It ties into the liberal notion of history being purely progressive and linear, thus landing on an absolute futurism, wherein as long as the researcher waits long enough their totalizing theory of reality, including natural history, will bear the fruits of proving this system or that system of thought right or wrong. This is how evolutionists operate just the same; it is the exact same prolegomenon as the dispensationalist thinks from. Or we could bring it back to the Bible and think in terms of inerrancy; with the normal caveat always attending said doctrine: i.e., that the original autographs of Scripture (which we don’t have, but one day might find) are indeed absolutely without factual error. If you listen to early Darwinists, or even neo-Darwinists, or even post-Darwinists, this is the same method. The future, history becomes the final stamp of proof and approval of the validity, the totalizing imprimatur of history’s verification of the explanation of all of reality; we just have to wait long enough, and the proof will finally apocalyptically descend upon us. Dispensationalists, especially popular ones, point people to the fulfillment of prophecy, in a futurist frame, as the sine qua non and proof that Scripture is in fact God’s more sure word of prophecy, indeed.

The dispensationalists aren’t alone in this type of verification processing. There are folks like Wolfhart Pannenberg, who would not fit into the fundamentalist frame, per se, at least not in the North American evangelical sense, who likewise thinks salvation history in terms of a linear progressive reality that is finally proven to be of God by way of the climaxing of history in the resurrection and the attendant second coming of Jesus Christ. Even so, Pannenberg, a German theologian in the heart of it all, in a way, serves as a more sophisticated illustration to what ends up happening in North American fundamentalism. What Pannenberg and the dispensationalists might have in common, though, is that they both, respectively, and from very different vantage points, take the work of the liberal theologians, and higher critics seriously enough to allow said work to set the agenda, to frame the categories that they feel compelled to work within; to respond to; to defeat, but on the higher critics’ terms and categories rather than the positive terms that a robustly confessional theology has set all along, within the ecclesiastical and ‘believing’ frame.

Others within the development of modern history, like Barth, feel the weight of the higher critics as well; but then say: “so what!” That’s a whole other complicated line of thought we will have to visit later. But suffice it to say, following someone like Barth, or TF Torrance, it is better, in my view, to simply move beyond the higher critics (by bottoming out) and allow the reality of Holy Scripture itself, who is the Christ, to set and determine the categories the Christian seeks to think and articulate theology from. If the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the primordial history de-limiting event of all of reality, as it is, then to allow folk, like the higher critics, who are thinking from terms laid down by the old creation to set the agenda and terms for the Christians, is backward thinking that is not befitting a truly Christian Dogmatic way.

We don’t need to “prove” anything about God’s existence, about His ways in history, about His written Word etc.; instead, the world needs to be proven and approved by His life for the world in Jesus Christ. And if this is the case, then the dispensationalists, as a prolongation of the broader fundamentalist way, is on an errand that is highly imprudent coram Deo. We are Christians, if we are; as such, we think “scientifically” only if we think from the triune God given for us in Jesus Christ. He is prior to the higher critics, and all of us. He re-created reality in the resurrection Jesus Christ. This must be allowed to set the ontological, ontic, and epistemological terms by which Christians engage with Scripture and its veritas for the world. The dispensationalists and fundamentalists, whether progressive or conservative, have ceded much much too much to the old-world order.

What is the Secret Rapture of the Church?: With Some Reference to Calvary Chapel

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Like many out there I grew up as a so called Pre-Tribulational (Pretrib), Dispensational Premillennialist. I was weaned on books by H. A. Ironside, and influenced by people like Charles Ryrie, Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, and the whole company of characters at Dallas Theological Seminary. I ended up attending a school founded by John Mitchell, Multnomah Bible College and Biblical Seminary, which was endearingly known (back then and prior) as ‘Mini-Dallas.’ Multnomah had its roots in Dallas; not just ideationally, but relationally. So, as a son of a Conservative Baptist pastor, and one trained at a decidedly ‘dispensational’ school, I am well worn and schooled in this area of consideration; and beyond just its popular representations, but in its most rigorous and academic form. Even so, as I continued to study, and even with some at my seminary (profs who were not really dispensational at all, in fact some silently repudiated it), I began to see some serious holes in the whole dispensational framework. As a result, I kept studying after graduating seminary in 2003, and by the time I read Richard Bauckham’s little book The Theology of the Book of Revelation I was ready to be persuaded away from the whole system (probably around 2010); and I was. After reading Bauckham’s work I finally and fully repudiated dispensationalism, and its attendant teachings, and, at least as far as thinking about the millennium and the second coming of Christ were concerned, accepted the Amillennialist perspective (and I still do).

In case you still aren’t clear though on what Pretrib rapture theory entails, a primary teaching of Dispensational thought, I thought I would share a nice summation of its historical development as that took place through the teaching of John Nelson Darby. Ernest Sandeen in his book The Roots Of Fundamentalism: British And American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 offers a really nice presentation on the entailments present in the so called ‘secret’ rapture teaching developed by Darby, and currently held to by a plethora of an aging American evangelical populace. He writes (in extenso):

The focus on their disagreement was Darby’s teaching about the second coming of Christ, known at that time and since as the secret rapture and one of the most distinctive teachings of dispensationalism. Darby, in company with all the Plymouth Brethren, believed that the church could not be identified with any of the denominational and bureaucratic structures which historically had made and presently were making that claim. The true church, the bride of Christ as Darby often referred to it, could only exist as a spiritual fellowship. The consummation of the church would take place at the second coming of Christ when the members of the body of Christ, both living and dead, would be caught away to dwell with Christ in heaven. Darby’s view of the premillennial advent contrasted with that held by the historicist millenarian school in two ways. First, Darby taught that the second advent would be secret, an event sensible only to those who participated in it. Darby did not expect the kind of public and dramatic event so graphically described in Matt. 24:27: “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man.” The character of the church required that the coming be secret and mystical.

It is this conviction, that the church is properly heavenly, its calling and relationship with Christ, forming no part of the course of events of the earth, which makes its rapture so simple and clear; and on the other hand, it shews how the denial of its rapture brings down the church to an earthly position, and destroys its whole spiritual character and position. Our calling is on high. Events are on earth. Prophecy does not relate to heaven. The Christian’s hope is not a prophetic subject at all.

There were, in effect, two “second comings” in Darby’s eschatology. The church is first taken from the earth secretly and then, at a later time, Christ returns in a public second advent as described in Matthew 24. As Darby put, “The church’s joining Christ has nothing to do with Christ’s appearing or coming to earth.”

Second, Darby taught that the secret rapture could occur at any moment. In fact, the secret rapture is also often referred to as the doctrine of the any-moment coming. Unlike the historicist millenarians, Darby taught that the prophetic timetable had been interrupted at the founding of the church and that the unfulfilled biblical prophecies must all wait upon the rapture of the church. The church was a great parenthesis which Old Testament prophets had not had revealed to them. As was true of all futurists, of course, Darby maintained that none of the events foretold in the Revelation had yet occurred nor could they be expected until after the secret rapture of the church. Christ might come at any moment; the watchful believer might have been, and indeed should have been, waiting faithfully and patiently for that return, like the ten virgins in Jesus’ parable, ever since the day of Christ’s ascension. Darby avoided the pitfalls both of attempting to predict a time for Christ’s second advent and of trying to make sense out of the contemporary alarms of European politics with the Revelation as his guidebook.

To me the Lord’s coming is not a question of prophecy, but my present hope. Events before His judging the quick are the subject of prophecy; His coming to receive the church is our present hope. There is no event between me and heaven.

This expectation of the imminent advent, with no obstacle in the way of Christ’s return, proved to be one of the greatest attractions of dispensational theology.

Darby never indicated any source for his ideas other than the Bible — indeed, he consistently affirmed that his only theological task was explicating the text of Scripture. The secret rapture was a distinctive development, however, and considerable interest has been aroused about the source of the doctrine. As late as 1843 or possibly even 1845, Darby was expressing doubts about the secret rapture. In later years he seems to have felt that he was convinced about the doctrine as early as 1827. Darby’s opponents claimed that the doctrine originated in one of the outbursts of tongues in Edward Irving’s church about 1832. This seems to be a groundless and pernicious charge. Neither Irving nor any member of the Albury group advocated any doctrine resembling the secret rapture. As we have seen, they were all historicists, looking for the fulfillment of one or another prophecy in the Revelation as the next step in the divine timetable, anticipating the second coming of Christ soon but not immediately. After Irving’s death the Catholic Apostolic church continued to teach historicist doctrines. It is true that among the English phrases pronounced by one or another of the illuminati in Irving’s church there occurred fragments such as “Behold the bridegroom cometh,” and “count the days one thousand three score and two hundred — 1,260 — . . . at the end of which the saints of the Lord’s should go up to meet the Lord in the air,” but such utterances can scarcely be considered as evidence for any doctrine and have, in any case, little reference to the secret rapture as Darby taught it. Since the clear intention of this charge is to discredit the doctrine by attributing its origin to fanaticism rather than Scripture, there seems little ground for giving it any credence.[1]

As is clear, as Sandeen develops for us, even in the house of the millenarians, there was intramural debate of no small contest. But our focus, in particular, is on the sketch that Sandeen provides in regard to what the teaching of the secret rapture entails, in itself, and what the broader framework was that supported it. Further, Sandeen, and I think this is significant, and important towards making a critique, gives us the genealogy of Dispensationalism, and the secret rapture teaching. John Nelson Darby, and this is well known, is the source for this rapture theology in the history of its relatively recent development. In other words, this teaching is idiosyncratic to Darby, despite the claims of folks like Ryrie who attempt to find a red thread of its belief back to the Apostolic age. More importantly, in order to get the rapture teaching from Scripture, the exegete must manhandle the text to a point that it no longer is contextual to the canonic text.

As I alluded to above, I think that this teaching, both the framework of Dispensationalism, and its adjunct teaching of the secret rapture are on the wane. This is for a variety of socio-cultural and demographic reasons, but also because most of the evangelical churches have gone the seeker-sensitive route; a route where they perceive that the seeker desires to be titillated by bright lights, smoke machines, and loud music rather than engaging in any sort of doctrinal teaching. That’s one primary reason I think dispensational teaching is dying. But then, like with people like me, as we continue to study and attempt to engage the text of Scripture more critically, it becomes clear, through studies like Sandeen’s, that Dispensationalism and the secret rapture are simply too ad hoc and artificial to actually be defended from Scripture. This is why the appeal for this teaching and framework largely remains one made to the popular rather than the academic or in the confessional sectors of the Church.

One denomination that still presses this teaching more than any other that I am aware of is, Calvary Chapel. In a formative period of my life I attended their bible college for a year, and was a ‘member’ of the mother church, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, for about five years. During this period of my life I literally attended church five days a week, and absorbed the life and culture of the church; that church, but not fully in the end. The founding pastor of CC, Chuck Smith, whom all following pastors in Calvary Chapel elevated and attempted to imitate down to listening to him teaching through the Bible (“Chuck Tapes”), was an ardent proponent of Dispensationalism and secret rapture teaching. Attendant with this, Smith was also a strong Christian Zionist, and spent much of his time leading trips to Israel; he also gave financially, as I recall, to the cause of Israel through various mediators, so on and so forth. As a result, Smith was known by many of the leaders (like prime ministers/presidents) of Israel. It was this influence that shaped Calvary Chapel until his death on October 3rd, 2013. Since then there has been a split within the many Calvary Chapel churches. Some of the churches have moved away from this heavy emphasis on prophecy teaching and dispensationalism (including CC Costa Mesa under the leadership of Smith’s own son-in-law, Brian Brodersen), but others have doubled down and remained committed as ever to this Smithian emphasis. Teachers like Barry Stagner, Don Stewart, Mike MacIntosh, Jack Hibbs, Tom Hughes, David Hocking (who isn’t officially CC, but might as well be), Jon Courson, and a host of others continue to propagate this teaching of Darby’s as if it is a preamble of the faith.

Calvary Chapel serves as one example, a significant example, of how Darby’s teaching remains in the mainstream of conservative evangelical teaching. Dallas Theological Seminary, Multnomah University (my alma mater), Biola University and Talbot School of Theology, Western Seminary (Portland, OR) among other like schools continue to maintain a dispensational character; albeit less prominent for some of these schools, respectively, relative to years past. All this to say that this teaching has a history, and places of education that continue to provide context that allows it to be fostered in the North American context. While I think Dispensationalism is indeed on the wane, I don’t really think, especially at a popular level, that is going away anytime soon.

One thing that I can say positive about my background in this area is that it did instill an excitement about the return of Christ into my life that outwith this teaching I’m not sure I’d have. The one element that I think is true about the intent of the ‘secret rapture’ is the emphasis it supplies in regard to focusing on the return of Christ. As an amillennialist I maintain this same sort of fervent hope that was instilled into me originally by my Dispensational, Pretrib background. Even if I have eschewed the whole framework as artificial and not organic with the whole canonical teaching of Scripture, at the same time I can lock arms with them in the hope of Christ’s soon and any moment return.

My style of amillennialism, at least as I have attempted to think it, maintains that just like with the first advent of Christ, there was a whole complex of historical on the ground factors occurring that made His coming very hard to discern for most. I think similarly at the second coming, while there are prophetic details presented in Scripture that ought to cue us into this coming, that it will be impossible to ‘chart’ a timeline of just how things will look exactly at His coming. I think, along with Bauckham, that there will be a Babylonian character, on a global scale, at the second coming of Christ. I think we are there in intense ways, and so I actually do expect that Christ could return at any moment; or at least “any moment” relative to my capacity to actually penetrate what in fact is happening on the ground as they precede His coming. We can get into the details of what I actually believe about these details in a later post.

[1] Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots Of Fundamentalism: British And American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1978), 62-5.