Why I am a dispensationalist with a small "d"

1. Apocalyptic. Dispensationalism has always sought to come to grips with apocalyptic without attempting to demythologize or domesticate it. I know theologians who have shied away from the book of Revelation as either too difficult or esoteric. But the reason apocalyptic is so important is that it affirms many basic themes that are central to God's involvement with us.

First, from Adam to the end, God is forging out a plan that will come to a triumphant resolution within the current progress of history.

Second, apocalypticism unashamedly affirms the cosmic struggle that is really going on in our world. Though some can make too much of the seeming dualism, the fact is that for most of our modern world the problem is an underappreciation of the unseen forces at work in our world and in us. Apocalypticism challenges all of this by reminding us that we are on one side or the other of a huge cosmic struggle in a story of accountability whose end is not in doubt.

Third, apocalypticism is unashamedly antinaturalist. Part of the reason many are hesitant to reflect on apocalyptic themes is that such themes are so antimodernist. To see God radically breaking into our world has been out of vogue since the Enlightenment. Many of us are left uncomfortable with apocalypticism,s disturbing images of cosmic judgment. We prefer a clean victory in which losers are better forgotten than dealt with. Apocalypticism challenges this falsely sanitized worldview at its core.

2. God's grace. The dispensational portrait of salvation and the fateful journey of Israel is a presentation of God's grace and faithfulness to his promises. The account is of a God who does not abandon his plans or give up on the sinner. God's grace makes Israel's story to the end very important, as Romans 9-11 shows. An emphasis on God's grace reminds us that God is "forbearing, not wishing that any should perish, but that we all should come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9). Reflecting on God's grace means taking our sin seriously as something God went to great lengths to pay for. It also means remembering that we are God's because of Christ and not because of an inherent work we performed.

The story of Israel, the unworthy object of promise, is also significant in portraying the faithfulness of God. That he will win her back again one day is a picture of the constancy of God we must never forget.

3. Holistic reading of Scripture. Dispensationalism embraces the story of Scripture as a whole and seeks to integrate it. Our tradition, like others, has its points of discussion about how integration works in its detail. Yet the tradition remains committed to reading the progress of the Biblical story as something to which one gives careful attention. It is important to see where one era is both like and unlike other eras. In saying that today is not like yesterday, dispensationalism challenges the Church to read Scripture with an eye to the uniqueness of what God is doing in a particular period.

4. Church and world. Dispensationalism has always made a distinction between the Church and the world. Some see this as a weakness that leads to escapism. But I do not. Many of the Church's great missionary organizations originated with dispensationalists who believed the Church was where God was especially at work. The social activism of dispensationalism has focused on a different direction because of the perception of this priority. This distinction has promoted evangelism and has argued that God's work in the Church is where real reform and redemption are found. This is not to say that engagement with the world is unnecessary. We need to remember, however, as Israel's history also shows, that without a transformation of the heart a new law risks being a dead letter.