What Is Dispensationalism? Its Distinctives, Contributions & Possible Pitfalls

Dispensationalism is a theological approach to reading the Bible that emphasizes the various administrative ways God has managed the plan of salvation for restoring humanity into a healthy relationship with God through Christ. At its core, dispensationalism is a theology of the kingdom tied to the biblical covenants and their administration.

This article will define what dispensationalism is, as well as explore its characteristics, types (as dispensationalism is not monolithic), current discussions within the movement, its recent developments, and potential missteps.

What is dispensationalism?

In describing dispensationalism, allow me to highlight five of its important traits.

1. Attending to discontinuity

The term “dispensation” emerges from the administrative arrangement that Paul refers to in Ephesians 3:1, a “stewardship.” The Greek term οἰκονομία is translated as dispensatio in Latin. It refers to how one administers something.

Dispensationalists will speak about the periods of the law, grace, and millennium (or better, Israel, church, and millennium), distinguishing what is unique to each era. This is because what was key in one era may not belong to another period. For example, sacrifices that dominated Israel’s worship history in the OT have become realized in what Jesus did through one sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

2. Emphasis on the covenants

Dispensationalism emphasizes the role of the covenants in the Bible, as well as the significant place of Israel in the program of God through which the covenants and messiah emerged. In particular, the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 12:1–3 and repeated numerous times in the Pentateuch) made commitments to the world through Israel and her seed. This includes the hope of the emergence of a messiah as a means of blessing for the world.

3. The enduring election of Israel

This set of promises to Israel is read in the dispensational tradition as preserving a place for the restoration of the people and nation of Israel in the midst of Jesus’s return to redeem the world. Jesus’s blessing of the world does not negate commitments God made specifically to the people of Israel as his promise to them unfolded.

4. A literal interpretation of God’s promises

Dispensationalists often contend this means taking the promises of God literally with the argument that the commitments God makes, such as to Israel, he is faithful to keep. Romans 9–11 argues for this as does a text like Acts 3:18–22. How this relates to the reconciliation of the nations can be seen in Isaiah 19:23–25, Galatians 3:28, and Ephesians 2:11–22.

5. Premillennial eschatology

Dispensationalism tends to be premillennial in its apocalyptic eschatology, expecting a thousand year rule of Christ on the earth from Israel before the new heavens and earth.

Dispensationalists argue that Revelation 20 describes a period of earthly rule for Jesus before the new heavens and the new earth appear. In that chapter, the period of one thousand years is affirmed multiple times, showing it is not a mere figure of speech. There are also events described as coming before and after the thousand years showing it is, indeed, a specific period of time. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic in genre, with a key point of that genre being it is a theodicy, arguing that justice will be established by God according to a set calendar of events.

Further details of this system include the timing of Jesus’s return to gather the saints in salvation, a position that often is called pretribulationalism, as this return occurs before an intense seven-year period of trouble for the world.

What value does dispensationalism offer?

Having briefly defined dispensationalism, I now want to convey its value to the larger church.

I do not claim that the following is unique to the dispensational tradition—they are not necessarily absent in other traditions—but simply that dispensationalism strikes a helpful note in the way it looks at such questions and in some of the ways it combines them. Other traditions could compile similar lists. However, here I wish to highlight seven areas of value that reflect dispensationalist thought.

These dispensationalist emphases resonate with important biblical themes in ways that offer something of value to the rest of the evangelical community.

1. Giving attention to apocalyptic

Dispensationalism has always sought to come to grips with apocalyptic without attempting to demythologize or domesticate it.

Personally, I know theologians who have shied away from the book of Revelation as either too difficult or esoteric. But apocalyptic is important because it affirms themes that are central to God’s involvement with humanity. Three such themes are worth mentioning:

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

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

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

2. Showcasing God’s faithfulness & 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 Bible’s account as read by dispensationalists is one of a God who does not abandon his plans or give up on the sinner. God’s grace makes Israel’s story important even to the end, as Romans 9–11 shows.

The Bible’s account as read by dispensationalists is one of a God who does not abandon his plans or give up on the sinner.

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 personal sin seriously as something for which God went to great lengths to pay. It also means remembering that believers are God’s because of Christ—not because of an inherent work they performed.

The story of Israel, the unworthy object of promise, among other things portrays the faithfulness of God. That he will win her back again one day is a picture of the constancy of God which all believers must never forget.

3. A holistic approach to reading Scripture

Dispensationalism embraces the story of Scripture as a whole and seeks to integrate it. The dispensationalist 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 should give careful attention.

Dispensationalism insists that 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. Distinguishing church & world

Dispensationalism has always made a distinction between the church and the world. Some see this as a weakness that leads to escapism. However, this is not necessarily true. For instance, many of the church’s great missionary organizations originated with dispensationalists who believed that God worked especially through the church.

Because of its priority on the church, dispensationalism’s social activism has often promoted evangelism, arguing 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.

5. Emphasizing all believers as ministers

One of the more perplexing developments of the past century was the rise of the parachurch organization. It is an innovation, like Sunday school, that is probably here to stay. At the base of this movement stands the belief that the church is not a building, nor is it located on a particular corner. It is people of faith seeking to minister for the living God they serve and love wherever God has placed them.

Dispensationalism helped to contribute to the origin of many parachurch organizations. This emphasis benefits everyone. Another example is the home Bible study, expressing the fact that God calls all Christians to be serious in learning as his disciples. A final example is the rise of the faith and work movement, affirming those in the workplace serve as ministers of God and his ambassadors—an important biblical idea.

6. Acknowledging cultural distinctions within the body

Another point not often appreciated about dispensational thought is its sensitivity to cultural distinctions in the church.

All Christians are redemptively one in Christ, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, etc., but they are also made up of Jewish and gentile identities. Part of the gospel includes the powerful portrait of horizontal reconciliation. The gospel reminds us that when God brought us together, he did so despite the fact that we are very different people from widely diverse backgrounds. God was in the business of bringing estranged peoples together when he united Jew and gentile. This allowed for Jewish believers to be Jewish in their engagement, as long as they did not try to make gentiles into Jews and vice versa (see Acts 10 and 15; Rom 14–15). This corporate element of salvation testifies to the power of the gospel to change how we live.

The church needs to model cultural reconciliation, a unity in the midst of God’s wonderful creative diversity. Unfortunately, we sometimes witness efforts to deny this kind of variety within the body, making some people assimilate to others. This not only denies healthy aspects of cultural identity, it also cuts into the variety God has made humans to possess.

7. Preserving nations in the plan of God

In particular, dispensationalists have prominently argued for a role for national structures in redemption beyond the individualistic features of salvation to which most give their attention. Yes, all are one in Christ as Galatians 3:28 so powerfully states, but distinctions remain. Those distinctions remind us we are reconciled in Christ and yet retain a beautiful diversity that God created us with from the start.

This goes back to the creation when God made human beings as stewards who existed in relation with him and who needed each other. As people were called to subdue the earth (Gen 1:26–28), they were to collaborate together to make the creation function effectively. Salvation restores that role.

Israel also has a unique role in the program to come—and not just as Jewish people. God’s redemption displays how those from diverse backgrounds are all his people and yet can function in the original social structures he created. Consider texts like Isaiah 2:1–4 or 19:23–25 where Israel, Assyria, and Egypt exist next to each other in the worship of God. This makes a huge statement about how reconciliation works, affirming a unified identity on the one hand and diversity on the other. Christ brings those differences together, unifying them, while maintaining how we were originally made.

Yet this unifying relationship also means that redemption is never about a kind of nationalism that can divide, nor does it allow for a kind of destructive tribal identity politics that risks pulling people apart. Rather, diversity is both affirmed even while people are drawn to their shared identity in Christ that makes them one in a more profound way. This is seen in imagery about all tribes and nations participating in salvation, worshipping God and the Lamb and participating in genuine reconciliation (Rev 4–5).

How has dispensationalism developed?

One of the greatest commitments of the dispensational tradition is to go where Scripture goes, a view that implies a willingness to take a serious, internal look at itself. Critical self-reflection is always a difficult exercise. Sometimes such reflection needs the input of those outside the tradition to help detect blind spots. At other times, it needs some from within to raise questions and suggest solutions. In principle, a tradition that does not give room for reflection will fossilize.

Commitment to a tradition is a commitment not only to preserve, protect, and defend, but also to consider the need to reform and reshape when such reshaping is more biblical. The fact that we can engage in reflection within our tradition, as well as across other traditions, is a sign of our health.

Given this self-reflection, dispensationalism has had three major periods of development in its history.

1. Traditional dispensationalism

The original form of the tradition emphasized a total distinction between Israel and the church, with the church being a heavenly people and Israel being seen as an earthly people. For example, in some expressions of the traditional form of dispensationalism, there was a claim of two new covenants, one for Israel and another for the church. The Sermon on the Mount was seen as belonging to a renewed period of the law yet to come.

2. Revised dispensationalism

Later, this total distinction was defined with more nuance and with less totality in what some have called revised dispensationalism. In this form, two new covenants gave way to just one new covenant, and the Sermon the Mount was not seen as so strictly future.

3. Progressive dispensationalism

The third approach to the tradition has been called progressive dispensationalism, as it highlights the continuity and progressive realization of the covenant promises in each era of redemption, both the church period and the millennium, as well as in the consummation. So not only does it advance one new covenant which is being realized in an already-not-yet expectation (inauguration now and consummation to come), but all the covenants have an inaugural realization in the church period—something older approaches to the tradition hesitated to see at least with the Davidic covenant (traditional and revised dispensationalism) or in the new covenant (traditional dispensationalism).

What are current areas of dialogue within dispensationalism?

There are two such themes, particularly advanced by progressives, that represent emphases worth noting that make it an interesting time to be a dispensationalist.

1. The unity of Scripture

One fresh emphasis is assessing unity in the scriptural message in the midst of dispensationalism’s well-known pursuit of distinctions. This has happened in response to questions posed by those outside the dispensationalist tradition. In any case, the result has been a new, Bible-focused dialogue with many of the other traditions.

Some who are skeptical of these developments think that this was the goal all along—namely, to recast dispensationalism in a way that made it more acceptable to outsiders and, in the process, undermining true dispensationalism. They also are uncomfortable with the new rapprochement found with those of other positions, seeing this as compromising truth for the sake of a false unity.

But those who react to these developments only with a desire to exclude and dismiss are risking hurting themselves by separating themselves from a potentially fruitful discussion about unity and diversity within the Scriptures. What often has been posed as an either/or problem by many traditions is now presented as a possible both/and, paving the way for more unity across the traditions.

2. The breadth of salvation

Recent developments in dispensationalism focus on God’s call to reform humanity in all their relationships as a result of salvation in Christ. This has been pursued by reintroducing the study of the Gospels and the prophets for their ethical thrust within dispensationalist thought, moving beyond an appeal to the mere demands of being made in the image of God.

Consideration is given both to how God calls people to relate to one another and how that now becomes possible, but only in Christ, since true reform outside of him is impossible. Salvation and sanctification are not only issues of a private vertical relationship to God, but also involve a corporate reconciliation in the variety of life’s contexts. For this emphasis, see texts like Luke 1:16–17 or 3:10–14. This becomes part of loving one’s neighbor.

How can recent developments in dispensationalism correct missteps?

Renewed attention to the corporate dimensions of salvation can help correct and protect against potential missteps.

1. Engagement instead of withdrawal

One misstep is to withdraw from the world and its issues, leaving them largely unaddressed. It is to leave secular persons to sink in their own mire as society degrades around us, going for mere change of heart instead. But how can one see where the heart is unless the issues of life are scrutinized according to Scripture? In this withdrawal, we risk making God irrelevant to whole areas of human endeavor.

2. Attending to internal transformation

A second misstep to subtly suggest is that the mere passage of certain laws or the raw exercise of political clout will improve society. This is to risk a dangerous dualism. To impose the standards of God without the inward renewal of the Spirit will not ultimately work, even though it is well-intentioned. Israel had the best law heaven could provide, and yet at points her society was also thoroughly corrupt. To march into the arena of the public square without offering God’s grace of new life risks presenting only one side of God that can result in an ugly distortion of him.

Alongside attempting to call transgression sin and seeking to raise the standards of society, Christians must also hold out the hope of God’s forgiveness and grace in Christ, knowing that each person will be accountable to God for the life decisions one makes, whether good or bad, and in the end only a new life fully restores.

3. Centering the church

This focus on salvation also stresses the fact that the church is where God’s activity is most evident in modeling God’s way—or at least it should be. If genuine reform is only possible in Christ, then it should be displayed in and among Christians.

Dispensationalism’s fresh emphasis on Christ’s authority in this era and Christ pouring himself into the church means that the implications of Christian involvement in the world need to be worked out, understanding both the church and the world as objects of love and concern.

4. Aligning with Christ’s expansive salvation

A final misstep is to assume we can fix the world and its socio-political space apart from Christ. But this is to underestimate the impact of corporate sin and the need for salvation.

Our new life calls us to serve and think of others, not just ourselves. The gospel pushes us to think beyond our tribe and our own nation: to consider every tribe and nation as being potential beneficiaries of Christ’s work in salvation.

What are the potential dangers of dispensationalism?

There are pitfalls in all of this. One must be careful that strengths are not overplayed into disappointing and damaging weaknesses. Therefore, three potential dangers of the dispensational tradition are worth noting.

1. A lack of humility

A high commitment to Scripture is both a gift and a responsibility. The gift comes with having access to the truth and a precious revelation from God, for which the church is a custodian. The pressure on theologians of all persuasions to remain faithful to that truth and to represent it accurately in what they teach is great. Because dispensationalism is committed to the truth of the Word, it too has always had a strong desire to be careful about how its doctrine is articulated.

But being committed to Scripture also entails a responsibility. Having access to the truth of an inspired text and knowing the truth are two different things. They can easily be confused. Faithfulness to the truth is important, but so is how we interact with others. Our responsibility is to be faithful to the Word and be fair about what we really know. We need the humility to recognize helpful insights from others who read Scripture.

2. Misguided eschatological fervor

An important element of dispensationalism’s tradition is its commitment to what God will do in his grace in the future. But if we’re honest, we would admit many instances when the desire to discern the future has gone too far. Many predictions of what is going to happen have proven false. In our zeal and certitude about what Scripture teaches about the rapture and return, we have painted scenarios that have turned out to have been off target.

It is certainly possible that Jesus could come today. But dispensationalists must be careful to remember the history of the church on this point. People within dispensationalism at large have attempted to argue in each generation that theirs is the last generation. Yet that “generation” has now extended many generations.

The danger is a temptation to set dates and make identifications that end up having nothing to do with the divinely determined end plan. In doing so, we risk constructing a false worldview based on false identifications. In contrast, Acts 1:6–11 reminds us that the timing of the return is ultimately God’s business. He did not call believers to figure it out, but to keep watch, be assured victory lies with him, and be faithful in sharing Christ in the meantime.

As believers, we should look forward to the coming and completion of our redemption as our glorious God fully manifests his power and executes his judgment. Yet it is no accident that Titus 2:13, a text so loved and oft-cited by dispensationalists, occurs in an ethical context where we are exhorted to reflect the ethical character of our faith until Jesus comes.

3. Too much discontinuity

A final concern is that in its favored pursuit of biblical distinctions, dispensationalism risks separating the Lord Jesus too much from the theology of his bondservant Paul, or in overemphasizing differences that may not in the end be present. There is a danger of separating the covenants too much from the era of salvation’s inception or in displacing core ethical calls from the prophets or Jesus from the current era of the church.

It is no accident that the NT, when discussing the relationship between the gospel and OT promises, strongly asserts the continuity of this message in light of older promises. Indeed, Romans 1:1–4, 16:25–27, Galatians 3, and Hebrews 1:1–2 affirm that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of OT hopes and promises. Romans discusses the topic at the level of promise, law, soteriology, and the relationship between Jew and gentile. In this regard, Romans 9–11 is not a parenthesis in the book, but an essential part of the argument. Hebrews considers the superiority of Christ based on his current activity. It also considers the cessation of a need for repeated sacrifice, picturing an all-encompassing, one-time substitution as an expression of new-covenant inauguration, something the Lord’s Table also commemorates.

Conclusion

Dispensationalism has traditionally focused on understanding God’s program and faithfulness to his promises. It highlights a relational consistency that underscores the beauty of God’s grace.

There is much benefit in what dispensationalist thought offers to the theological tasks of our day. That does not mean that I, as a dispensationalist, am beyond discussing these issues with those of other traditions, nor does it mean that I think that the dispensationalist tradition at large does not have potential pitfalls in the way it expresses these emphases. Certain pitfalls have been voiced. But dispensationalism has value because I truly believe that much of what it teaches reflects enough of what Scripture teaches that the identification has merit.

I commend dispensationalism to others, not in the hope of winning a theological battle with others but in the hope that it helps all of us see our world, our God, and ourselves more clearly. But my identity in this regard will always be with a small “d,” because in the end my allegiance is not to a system of theology or to a tradition but to my God, his teaching, and all his people, whose redemption is so wonderfully portrayed in the truth he teaches about the Christ and who has connected himself with a variety of people.

Essential resources on dispensationalism

• Bateman, Herbert W., IV, ed. Three Central Issues in Contemporary Dispensationalism: A Comparison of Traditional and Progressive Views. Kregel Academic, 1999.

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