Presbyterian

Dispensationalism

In addition to the Presbyterian worldview, another worldview and method of understanding Scripture is called Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism divides the Bible into seven "dispensations" and teaches that God test man during these periods to determine man's responses to God's redemptive offer. Since the Bible itself never mentions these seven dispensations, Reformed theology does not understand them to be Scriptural tools in understanding God’s working with mankind. The word dispensation is rarely found in the New Testament and then only in the sense of 1) a responsibility 2) a stewardship or 3) an administration. It is not used as a period or epoch, nor is it used by any Biblical writer as a mode, arrangement, or administration by God in dealing with man. It is never given a theological meaning for "testing man's response to God's redemptive offer." This meaning is foreign to its use in the New Testament. It is not used in the Old Testament at all. As a result, Dispensationalism appears to be foreign to Scripture.

Dispensationalism denies the validity of Covenant Theology and for this reason is here mentioned. In the place of the Covenants, the Dispensationalists place these man made dispensations. However, “…the covenants are explicit scriptural indicators of divine initiatives that structure redemptive history. The dispensations instead represent arbitrary impositions on the biblical order. In the end it is not human design (Dispensationalism) but divine initiative (Covenants) that structures Scriptures.”

These dispensations create a discontinuity between the various parts of the Bible. This discontinuity reaches a crescendo when it relegates the Old Testament to a previous dispensation and, according to Dispensationalism, this Old Testament has no current authority in the life of a “New Testament” believer. The Covenants by distinction demand an understanding of God and His Word that sees each part of the Scripture unfolding as a continuous and authoritative whole. The entire Bible, properly understood, is continuously authoritative.

The continuity of the whole is demanded in Covenant Theology and denied in Dispensational Theology.

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