Does Historic Premillennialism trump Dispensationalism? The first time I asked this question was in a 2011 blog. It generated a lot of feedback at the time.
Craig Blomberg’s presentation
What led to my writing the blog was a lecture narrated to Denver Seminary by Gary Hoag and written by Historic Premillennialist Craig Blomberg. It was titled “Inappropriately Privileging Israel: Why Historic Premillennialism Trumps Dispensationalism.”
The title speaks for itself. Blomberg strongly suggested that popular dispensationalism unfairly advantaged Israel over the Palestinians. However, he asserted this position rather than defended it. I noted at the time,
Dr Blomberg chides replacement theology pointing to sufficient OT evidence indicating that national Israel has some future in the millennium. He points out that RT has led to anti-Semitism…He affirms that George Ladd is a scholar who overshadows the rest and, like Ladd, fails to see a necessity for either a Temple, or national Israel in Palestine prior to the Millennium.
Then he went on to promote blatant replacement theologians like Gary Burge and Colin Chapman as the “best guides” to refer to theologically. These men reject outright Israel’s biblical right to the land (now and future) and have partnered with Stephen Sizer who is notorious for his anti-Zionist activism.
Blomberg and Ladd etc
The fact that Blomberg holds Historic Premillennialist George Ladd in such high esteem is important, especially if you identify as HP. Does the NT re-interpret the OT? Ladd thought so. To understand the ramifications please read Mike Vlach’s article ‘Radical Reinterpretation,’ New Testament Priority, and the Hermeneutics of George Ladd. Mike writes,
One important thing to note here is that Ladd views NT priority over the OT as more than just being his own personal view – it is a “watershed” issue that separates non-dispensational theology from dispensational theology. Thus, one can determine whether he or she is a dispensationalist or not based on this understanding.
According to Ladd,
The Old Testament must be interpreted by the New Testament. In principle it is quite possible that the prophecies addressed originally to literal Israel describing physical blessings have their fulfillment exclusively in the spiritual blessings enjoyed by the church. It is also possible that the Old Testament expectation of a kingdom on earth could be reinterpreted by the New Testament altogether of blessings in the spiritual realm.
Do a search on Mike Vlach’s Blog for more articles on Historic premil and Ladd. For example, see HP, Disp and the Restoration of Israel.
There’s some irony re Craig Blomberg’s position on NT superiority. As Norman Geisler noted in an article, Blomberg, Robert Gundry (First the Antichrist & The Church and the Tribulation) and Mike Licona have denied that some events in the NT happened in a literal sense. See also the review of Vital Issues in the Inerrancy Debate.
Speaking of posttribulationist Gundry, William Lane Craig once ridiculed the doctrine of the pretrib rapture. As it turns out he’s an eschatological agnostic – he’s just sure pretrib is wrong. As a theistic evolutionist he has his own problems (Original Sin). Is this Reasonable Faith? Just saying!
The preference for HP
We’ve seen above that Ladd and Blomberg do not share the dispensational view of Future Israel. And while it’s wrong to lump all HPs in the same bucket, these men have been prominent and vocal representatives of the system.
So what defines HP? Is it an appeal to historical legitimacy? Over the years I’ve suspected that many non-pretrib futurist premils identified as HP or Classic Historical Premil because they wanted to disassociate themselves from the “recent” pretrib rapture view. George Ladd has been popular with the prewrath-posttrib people.
While folk will point to Tregelles, Newton, West etc as solid proponents of HP, one should note that they held some views which differed somewhat to modern prewrath-posttrib systems. I think it’s fair to say that eschatology in general has been under development over the last few hundred years. Yet modern HPs sometimes want to stress posttribulationism as the main criteria for HP.
Older proponents of HP also come with baggage modern posttrib futurist premils may not agree with. Many HPs (the Bonars, Spurgeon etc) were at least partial historicists. They were informed by their Covenant Theology and this affected their hermeneutics. For more on CT, the early Church Fathers, hermeneutics and Replacement Theology, see the excellent book “Forsaking Israel.”
From a sampling of Spurgeon’s sermons it’s evident he viewed the church as Spiritual Israel even though he held to a future redemption of National Israel. These older HPs – including the Bonars – regularly applied OT texts addressing Israel, to the church. Was this for the sake of sermon lessons or did they see Israel as the OT church? Did they see the Jews one day becoming a part of larger True Spiritual Israel (the Church including saved Gentiles)? I suspect so.
About that Book
A Case for Historic Premillennialism: An Alternative to “Left Behind” Eschatology” by Craig L. Blomberg and Sung Wook Chung Editors.
Aside from “Inappropriately Privileging Israel” one of Blomberg’s contentions in the Denver Seminary presentation was with the “popular” pretrib rapture. Blomberg’s posttribulationism is obviously important to him. In fact he co-edited a book addressing this. Frankly, when I see the term “Left Behind” I immediately expect condescension.
Erik Swanson wrote a review of the book. Sadly it’s no longer available online. I captured some observations HERE. Richard Mayhue also reviewed it HERE (Starting at bottom of page 11). Swanson notes,
Chapter after chapter, I found myself waiting for the case for HP. It never came. Rather the authors’ biases, presuppositions, and frustrations were the only clear part of this book. I wish it weren’t the case, but this book entirely fails at its objective and is of little value to the church in understanding eschatology today.
Swanson makes a fair point. What exactly defines HP and how is it biblically defended? It isn’t good enough to throw straw men at another system. One ought to defend what they believe from a biblical position rather than from presumed historical correctness.
Richard Mayhue comes to similar conclusions: The book assumed HP yet “did not develop a logically flowing inductive case.” He sensed a “tone of scholastic elitism” when comparing HP with dispensationalism. He wondered why Hal Lindsey and the Left Behind series were noted yet there was no mention of the resources contained in the Pretribulation Study Group. I’m personally not surprised. Mayhue observed,
Though an attempt was made by co-editor Sung Wook Chung in chapter seven (“Toward the Reformed and Covenantal Theology of Premillennialism”), no acknowledged contrast is drawn with the non-covenantal theology approach that is unique to futuristic premillennialism. This is a serious lapse given that the contributors and editors repeatedly stated that they wanted to make a very serious attempt at a scholastic case for an academic presentation of their view in contrast to what they alluded to was the popular “origin,” support, and articulation of futuristic premillennialism.
Does Historic Premillennialism trump Dispensationalism? It isn’t just about rapture timing differences. Over the years I’ve become more and more convinced that dispensationalism (though not perfect) best honors the intent of the biblical text in all things – and especially Israel’s position in eschatology. In my opinion HP has been left behind.
Maranatha!
Further reading:
Gary Burge’s Territorial Supercessionism
Dispensationalism: A Step Up for the “Israel of God”
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