Why I am a dispensationalist with a small "d"

time and has its details filled out by events within divine history. If we had deleted meaning that had been originally present, then his charge might have merit. But this is explicitly what we have not done. There is no rule of hermeneutics that says that a unit of meaning cannot be developed or made more complex by subsequent revelation. In fact there is an irony here in the challenge to complementary rEading. Dispensationalists who call OT texts millennial must do so by some form of complementary reading, since the category did not exist for the OT writer but comes from the book of Revelation. Thus even those who are revised dispensationalists engage in complementary readings of the OT.

4 This association was made in his response to my paper to the 1987 Dispensational Study Group meeting. My paper later was published as "The Reign of the Lord Christ," Dispensationalism, Israel, and the Church: A Search for Definition (ed. C. A. Blaising and D. L. Bock; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992). My initial response to this association appears on p. 54.

5 It is progressives' refusal to redefine Israel, for example, that makes unfair such critiques as that of R. Thomas about multiple-meaning hermeneutics. It will not do to compare the claims of older evangelical texts on hermeneutics with a discussion of progressive theory. Most of these texts do not cover in detail how one handles the progress of revelation between texts of OT hope and NT realization. Ultimately the Biblical texts of the covenant promise have to be studied and discussed in context to see how they present fulfillment. Thomas' article is unhelpful because it attempts to be theoretical and prescriptive while not discussing clearly the exegesis of key NT texts where OT passages are used with notes of fulfillment. The refusal by progressives to redefine Israel also means that the hermeneutical standard set by C. Ryrie for dispensationalists has been met, despite his complaint:; otherwise; see Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody, 1995) 43 n. 43 for his appropriate assessment of Ladd's hermeneutics. Interestingly, Ryrie rightly commends the work of Sauer while complaining about the views of progressives-an amazing paradox, given that Sauer made similar observations about Davidic promise.

6 Such efforts can be seen in the titles some have tried to bring into the discussion, which have moved beyond the descri pti ve titles "traditional," "revised" and "progressive" that we used with historical grounds. The recent unfortunate choice to use "normative" dispensationalism by some who hold to what we have called "revised" dispensationalism is an attempt to be prescriptive in ways that selectively cite the historical evidence of the history of dispensationalism, ignoring the position of a recognized dispensationalist like Sauer on the weak grounds that he is a continental dispensationalist and by not dealing with notes like that in the Scofield Reference Bible on Matt 3:2.

7 One should note the battle language being used and the misdirected attempt to read motive here.