I lost a friend because I said dispensationalism was not christian. He took it as an attack to his faith as christian. Indeed, it has many similarities with messianic judaism. Many doctrines taint christianity, passing a message that's not in the Bible.
Replacement theology is total rubbish, Israel is God’s plan to be His glory on the earth! God has nothing to do with the current church system! The church System is totally man made period!
Brother, thanks for taking the time to write such a long critique. I’m going to be blunt but (I hope) clear: you’re not actually describing my position, and a lot of what you call “Dispensationalism” is a stitched-together scarecrow.
Let me answer you on your own terms: text, context, and consistency.
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1. The “Darby invented it” trope
We’ve been here before.
Yes, Darby and Scofield systematized a framework in the 1800s. No, they didn’t invent:
• a future earthly kingdom (Rev 20; Isa 2, 11; Zech 14),
• a distinction between Israel and the Church (Rom 9–11; Eph 2–3), or
• the idea that God administers history in different stewardships/“dispensations” (Eph 1:10; 3:2; Col 1:25).
Call it “futurist premillennialism,” “dispensations,” or something else—those categories are already sitting in the text before Darby was born. Every theological camp has a later label. That doesn’t make the underlying exegesis automatically suspect.
If we’re going to swing the “late system” hammer, it falls just as hard on Augustine’s amillennialism, the Reformers’ state-church assumptions, and plenty of redemptive-historical grids.
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2. Two peoples? No—one redeemed people, distinct callings
You keep repeating that Dispensationalists teach “two plans, two peoples.” That’s simply not my position.
• There is one way of salvation for Jew and Gentile—by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Christ (Eph 2:8–9; Rom 3–4).
• There is one redeemed people in glory—every tribe, tongue, people, and nation around the Lamb (Rev 5:9–10).
• But within that one redeemed people, Scripture still recognizes distinctions of role and promise: Jew/Gentile, Israel/Church, nations/Israel in the Kingdom (Rom 11; Isa 2; Zech 14).
Galatians 3:28 doesn’t erase created distinctions; it means they don’t bar anyone from full standing in Christ. In the New Jerusalem you still see twelve tribes on the gates and twelve apostles on the foundations (Rev 21:12–14). Unity in Christ does not mean theological blur.
So no, I don’t teach “two ways of salvation” or “two peoples of God.” I teach one Savior, one cross, one redeemed family—and a God who keeps every covenant exactly as He spoke it.
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3. The Abrahamic covenant: unconditional at the root
You accuse me of “wooden literalism” in Genesis 17 and then build an entire syllogism on Ishmael. But Genesis itself dismantles your argument.
• Genesis 15: God alone passes between the pieces. Abraham is asleep. That is the classic picture of a unilateral covenant. God binds Himself to fulfill the land/seed/blessing promise.
• Genesis 17: circumcision is the sign. An uncircumcised individual is “cut off from his people”—that affects his participation in the blessing, not God’s faithfulness to the covenant itself.
• Genesis 17:19–21 explicitly narrows the covenant:
“My covenant I will establish with Isaac… But My covenant I will establish with Isaac.”
That’s the Spirit’s own answer to your Ishmael syllogism.
The exile doesn’t prove the covenant failed; it proves the curses of the Mosaic administration fell exactly as threatened, while the Abrahamic root remained (Lev 26:40–45; Jer 31:35–37). A temporarily displaced people does not equal a canceled promise.
If you want to argue the land promises are now spiritualized in Christ and the Church, that’s fine—but don’t pretend Genesis 15–17 reads naturally that way. You have to import that from your system.
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4. Romans 11: the olive tree is not “the secular state of Israel,” but it is ethnic Israel
You keep saying we “smuggle in” the modern state of Israel into Romans 11. I don’t. Paul isn’t talking about the Knesset; he’s talking about ethnic Israel in redemptive history.
• Paul contrasts “they” (Israel) with “you” (Gentiles) all through the chapter (vv. 11–13, 25). That’s corporate and ethnic, not just “the saved of all ages.”
• “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (v.2) points to that same corporate Israel, just as in the Elijah story—Israel as a nation under judgment, yet with a preserved remnant.
• The whole logic of the olive tree only works if the natural branches really are Israel and can be “grafted in again” (v.23–24).
If “all Israel” in v.26 is just “all the saved,” Paul’s argument collapses. The Gentile believers he’s writing to are already saved. The whole point is future national turning after the “fulness of the Gentiles has come in.”
You appeal to Rom 8:29–30 and Rom 9 as though they erase Rom 11. They don’t. Election unto salvation and God’s corporate, historical dealings with a nation are related but not identical categories. Paul can say “not all who are of Israel are Israel” (9:6) and still say “all Israel will be saved” (11:26) without redefining “Israel” as “everyone who believes, Jew or Gentile.” The second use is clearly corporate and ethnic.
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5. Ezekiel 36–37 and Zechariah 12: telescoping isn’t “Dispensational invention”
You insist Ezekiel 36–37 must be exhausted in the post-exilic return, and that Zech 12 is fulfilled at the cross or in AD 70. That’s assertion, not exegesis.
Ezekiel 36–37 contains elements never realized in the post-exilic community:
• A nation sprinkled, given a new heart, and indwelt by the Spirit as a whole (36:25–27). Post-exilic Israel did not become a regenerate, Spirit-indwelt nation.
• They are to “dwell in the land… forever” with David’s greater Son ruling them, “they shall not defile themselves any more,” and “the nations shall know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel” (37:23–28). That has not happened yet in history.
Zechariah 12:10ff is explicitly reused in the NT as future:
• John 19 cites it as a type when Jesus is pierced, but Revelation 1:7 applies “every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn” in an eschatological frame. That’s not exhausted in one Roman execution squad in the first century.
Prophetic telescoping—near and far horizons in one oracle—is not a dispensational gimmick. Jesus Himself reads Isaiah 61:1–2, stops halfway through a sentence, and says “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18–21). The “day of vengeance” waits for His return. Same text, two comings.
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6. “Literal” isn’t wooden—and you’re not doing what you claim
You accuse dispensationalists of “wooden literalism” and then of not being literal enough (Ezekiel = nukes, Russia, etc.). With respect: popular prophecy charts are not the standard of exegesis.
Taking genre seriously—recognizing hyperbole, metaphor, apocalyptic imagery, Hebrew idiom—is part of literal interpretation. Literal = according to the literary intention. When I say “I could eat a horse,” nobody imagines actual horse-meat. In the same way, acknowledging Hebrew war-rhetoric or prophetic symbolism doesn’t authorize us to rip Israel out of Israel and pour the Church into every text.
Your own method is not “grammatical-historical plus Christ.” It’s:
Start with a prior commitment to one people, one covenant, national Israel fulfilled in the Church;
then reread all OT covenant language through that lens, regardless of what the words would have meant to the original hearers.
That’s exactly the kind of thing you charge dispensationalists with—only in reverse.
Christ does fulfill all God’s promises (2 Cor 1:20). Amen. But fulfillment in Christ does not mean cancellation of the original referent. The resurrected Messiah reigning on David’s throne in Jerusalem, over a restored Israel and the nations, is the Christ-centered fulfillment of the covenants, not a step backwards into “Judaizing.”
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7. On Israel, antisemitism, and “blind support”
You close by suggesting that a literal, future for Israel leads Christians to “blindly support” a secular war machine. That’s a caricature.
I don’t give the modern state of Israel a blank check. I do say:
• God’s covenants with Abraham and David are still in play.
• The Jewish people remain “beloved for the sake of the fathers” even in unbelief (Rom 11:28–29).
• Gentile believers are warned not to be arrogant toward the natural branches (Rom 11:18–21).
• Antisemitism—secular, religious, “academic,” or dressed up in theology—is sin.
We can critique any nation’s policies without denying what God has clearly said about His purposes for Israel.
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8. The real issue: which grid is allowed to correct the other?
At bottom, this isn’t about “who loves Jesus more” or “who reads the Bible.” It’s about which grid we allow to be corrected by the text.
My commitment is simple:
• Let the OT covenants say what they say, to whom they were said.
• Let the NT expand, clarify, and apply—but not erase or retroactively rewrite.
• Let Israel be Israel, the Church be the Church, and Christ be the center of it all—without flattening every distinction into one amorphous category.
You’re convinced dispensationalism is a bad lens. I’m convinced your Augustinian/one-people grid forces you to spiritualize too much of the plain sense.
We can keep talking about specific passages if you like—Daniel 9, Revelation 19–20, Romans 9–11, the New Covenant texts. But let’s at least be honest about where the real disagreement lies.
Thanks for your indepth comments. I think you should write an artice - separately to rebut mine - rather than this comment that few might read. In summary from me. "Let the NT expand, clarify and apply but not erase or retroactively rewrite" - whilst I did make a claim that would fit this assertion in a hard sense. Who is to say your assertion is right? What if the NT authors writing under the inspiration of Holy Spirit did just that? Should we not seek to bow to scripture? My point is this - when the NT authors clarify OT promises that sounded national & physical in the OT, as "spiritual in the New" -- your view would be -- we must continue to have a physical fulfilment irrespective of the authors of the NT -- and I would say, NO the authors of the NT had the right to make bold claims -- under the inspiration fo the HS to show what was the real meaning of those "physical promises" in the OT
Biola University has one of the best debate teams in the nation. And honestly—that’s awesome. I respect the discipline, the training, the mental sharpness it takes to do that well.
But I’ve never been wired around winning debates.
I’ve been wired around reaching souls.
And it seems to me the former often defeats the latter.
Not because truth doesn’t matter. It does. Not because Christians shouldn’t be able to give an answer. We should. But because debate, as it’s commonly practiced, doesn’t just test ideas—it tests egos. It turns conversation into combat. It trains people to score points, to land zingers, to corner an opponent, to “own” someone publicly. And even when the theology is right, the spirit can be wrong.
You can win the argument and lose the person.
You can walk away “victorious” and leave someone more hardened than they were before you spoke.
Because most people don’t come to Christ because they watched their favorite side dominate a thread. They come because the Spirit of God pierces them with truth—often delivered through humility, patience, and love.
Debate tends to reward speed over carefulness.
Performance over prayer.
Confidence over contrition.
The appearance of strength over the fruit of the Spirit.
And that’s why I’m cautious.
Jesus didn’t build disciples through public sparring matches. Yes—He answered objections. Yes—He exposed error. But He wasn’t trying to rack up wins. He was calling people to repent, to believe, to submit to the Word. The goal wasn’t “Who looked smarter?” The goal was, “Who will bow?”
That’s still my concern today.
If the format encourages vanity, it will produce vanity—even if the content is orthodox. If it trains the flesh to fight, it won’t automatically train the heart to yield. And in our age especially, debates become content—clipped, shared, applauded—while souls get treated like collateral damage.
So I’m not against serious engagement. I’m not afraid of disagreement. And I’m not unwilling to clarify what I believe.
I just don’t want truth to be delivered in a way that makes the person feel like the target.
If someone wants to rebut my article, fine—write a separate piece. Open the text. Show your work. Let people read it without the adrenaline of a cage match. That feels more honest, more careful, and more likely to reach the ones who are actually listening.
I’m not doing debates. They too easily cater to ego rather than godliness. Jesus didn’t build His ministry on public sparring matches—He preached, taught, and called people to submit to Scripture. If you want to rebut my position, publish a separate article and I’ll consider it carefully.
There are many non-dispensationalist zionists as well. For some reason these arguments always collapse on dispys, but Edward’s, Ryle, Spurgeon, Hodges, etc all saw a future where the Jews were regathered to Israel.
It’s kind of amazing that Christian theology still argues against this. A really easy way to know if God has remained faithful to the Abrahamic covenant is by opening your eyes and seeing Jews in the land. If this covenant was broken they would have never returned. No need to work oneself into a theological pretzel.
NB - I never argued against what you are claiming. My contention was merely that God's people have always been ONE people, by promise. Gentiles have been grafter into those. Zionism is a very broad term that means a lot of different things to different people. Seeing Jews IN the land as "confirmation" of God's promise to Abraham, flatly contradicts the whole message of let's say Paul's letter to the Galatian church for one.. God's providence has allowed the Jews to return to their physical homeland - one can hold to that position (as I do) and yet not see that as a fulfilment of the promises to Abraham (as I do) since that flatly denies much of the New Testament
There was a famous conversation between Karl Barth & Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod. When they first met, Barth said: "you Jews have the promises but we Christians have the fulfillment." To which Wyschogrod replied, "When it comes to human promises, one may cancel or take them back, but a promise from God is not like this. If we have the promises then we also have the fulfillment." Anyways, throughout the entire OT witness of God's judgement, God never identifies the Jews as anything but His people, even in their disobedience. Their remaining His people is actually what God says shamed Him - it is because they are His people that their behavior is so offensive to God.
Galatians, it could be argued (besides being Paul's first letter) is obviously polemic against the Judaizers and is not teaching about the nature of Israel and actually seems to contradict much of Romans 9-11 where Paul teaches with clarity about the nature of Israel. (I understand many Reformed would synthesize Rom 9-11 a certain way to tilt towards their understanding of Galatians.) It also should be said that the Romans letter, besides being the most recent letter is the apex of Paul's thinking on Israel.
I also find the word "providence" you use a squishy word for a reality that seemingly lines up with an explicit covenant. Especially from a Calvinistic/deterministic worldview. I am not suggesting that land saves anyone, but it seems hard to deny that this seeming faithfulness is not from the hand of God becuase of it's visible covenantal witness - hopefully as precursor - to a much greater spiritual restoration of the Jewish people when they do recognize Jesus.
You have to deny the 100's of OT warnings that God will vomit his people out fo the land, will reneg on his land promises, will turn the land into a curse etc etc etc in order to arrive at the "hard conclusion" that the land promise somehow trumps over everything -- no matter what. God covenantal promises always have stipulations, that's repeated over and over again in all of scripture. Israel today is a secular, mostly atheist nation -- not covenantally faithful at all. It's not antisemitic to say this. I am of Jewish descent myself. Your camp (am not saying you) claims that the "return to the land" is the fulfilment of biblical promises when the very promises claimed - clearly stipulate that God will ONLY be faithful IF his people humble themselves in repentance. The return after the 2nd exile was demonstrably one of such repentance - as can be seen in the books of Ezra & Nehemiah -- not perfect repentance - but repentance nonetheless. This is demonstrably not so in the modern nation of Israel. Romans 11 is about the salvation of the Jews -- them turning to Christ -- which is happening in small numbers all over the globe - no nation in the middle east is required for this and in fact most Messianic Jews don't live in the small middle eastern nation - the people that live there are mostly atheists/secularists + a small minority of extreme Jews who think it is their god-given right to ignore the property rights of palestinians. And yes the palestinians have an equal group of murdering terrorists among them. Nothing particularly blessed about this nation
I definitely don’t disagree with the seriousness of the consequences as it relates to the land. I would consider the 1,900 years of diaspora to be a pretty fair judgement on Jewish flesh, if that is what you are after. But, to be fair to the text - in every case that it says this judgement - it is always followed by the idea that this judgement won’t last forever. It is deeply ironic to me that your (not you) camp will of course see 70 & 135 AD as Gods judgement, something I agree with - but - then don’t extend the same line of reasoning to their return. I don’t know how you can have it both ways. If gods judgment was permanent they would have never returned to the land.
There are multiple strands of teaching as it relates to the land. The deuteromic strand does indeed require repentance before restoration, but there are other OT texts that speak of a physical restoration followed by a spiritual restoration. In this line of theology it is reversed to what you are implying.
I’ve lived in Israel for years, I am not oblivious to the many problems Israel or any other nation has. Frankly, this view seems to protest too much against reality. “Providence”, to me at least, is when I take my pregnant wife to the hospital and a parking spot in front opens up. I don’t see how “providence” gathers millions of refugees from all over the world and places them in a nation surrounded by their enemies and yet somehow they flourish.
Anyways, not trying to blow up your comments here. Thanks for the interaction.
For 1,600 years, a certain stream of theology—rooted in Augustine and carried forward in much of medieval Catholicism and later Reformed tradition—taught that the Jewish people were a cursed, rejected, Christ-killing people, permanently set aside while the “true Israel” (the Church) replaced them. In that framework, the Jew became the perpetual object lesson, not the beloved nation with irrevocable promises (Romans 11:28–29). If a people are treated as beyond God’s mercy, it’s a tragically short step to treating them as less than fully human.
Did every Augustinian or Reformed Christian hate Jews? Of course not. Many loved them, some even died resisting evil. But ideas have consequences. Centuries of sermons, councils, and catechisms that painted Jews as rejected, blind, and uniquely guilty helped create the cultural soil in Europe where pogroms, ghettos, expulsions—and eventually Auschwitz—could grow. The Nazis were not orthodox Christians, but they weaponized a long-standing church narrative about “the Jew.”
My point isn’t to score denominational points; it’s to call for repentance and clarity. Any theology—Catholic, Reformed, Protestant, whatever—that contradicts Romans 11, erases God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel, or dehumanizes the Jewish people is bearing rotten fruit and needs to be abandoned. The God of Abraham keeps His promises. The Jew is not God-forsaken; Israel is still beloved for the fathers’ sake. As followers of the Jewish Messiah, we dare not speak—or think—of His people in any way that helped pave the road to those gates.
Dispensation means God addressing certain periods/eras. There are 7, and they align with creation Week. A total of 7,000 years, the last 1,000 being the Millennial Kingdom.
It doesn't mean replacement theology at all, it has nothing at all to do with Replacement theology; the replacement people don't even understand dispensation at all, that's why they think they are a replacement.
This is a good article but tries to fight too many battles at once. Most Christians experience anxiety about the end times not because the Bible is fearful, but because popular theological frameworks misalign time, promise, and identity.
No Fear Eschatology reveals how Scripture itself offers clarity and confidence by interpreting Old Testament prophecy through Christ, not geopolitics, fear, or speculation.
I would recommend my book on the Olivet Discourse "The End or the Beginning" - it's available on Amazon and is an indepth study on the three parallel accounts in the gospels - if you do buy/read it, I would even more appreciate if you give it a review - God bless
Well if you interpret that in a hard literal way -- then God failed since the nation of Israel has ceased to exist in a national sense the first time in the second exile to Assyria & Babylon, and then most certainly after Ad70 and then for nearly two thousand years. The alternative is to interpret this inline with the revelation given to us by the Apostles in the New Testament who call the Christians (both Jew and Gentile) a "Royal Priesthood & a Holy Nation" - so yes God has indeed been faithful -- it's just not in the way some interpret i.e. in the secular nation of Israel today...
Please read the article and perhaps first read the article I was rebutting. I never claimed this was my position nor did I claim this was biblical. Those premises are based on the stated assertions by the Dispensationalist who wrote the original article - namely that the Abrahamic covenant (the land part) came without any conditions — if this WERE (not was) true then I simply aimed to state the consequences as a logical sylogism. All hypothetical. I hope this makes sense of why I wrote what I wrote. I never once stated that this is is what I believe or that this is biblical. It was simply the logical conclusion of the Dispensationalist assertions
I understood you were refuting a faulty syllogism, but had never heard of anyone making the first premise, that all of Abraham's were entitled to the land. have no idea where you got that. But anyway, I deleted the comment.
Thanks for your response - if you read the article I was aiming to rebut -- the claim in the article was that the Abrahamic covenant was unconditional -- and given that when God first gave this covenant - he said "to your offspring" -- IF the covenant is unconditional then it must be to ALL his offspring as that is the natural way to read the passage (without the conditions that come from reading the context) - IF however (as everyone believes) the covenant was made only with Isaac (as shown by the continued reading of context) then this implies naturally that the covenant was conditional after all. The grand issue is that Dispensationalists claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional and it is an entirely different covenant than the one made with or through Moses. The bible doesn't make this hard distinction nor does it ever claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional. Once you see that -- then the whole underpinning of the Dispensationalist argument starts to crumble.
I answered your other comment too quickly at the end of a long day so am glad to say more about it now.
I did look at the article you linked to, and it does say in Genesis 17:7 that
“And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.”
This was before Isaac was born, but anyone who quoted this could easily have thought it was not necessary to explain that this was later narrowed to Isaac and anyone with any interest in this subject knows that.
I don’t know of anyone who has ever stated that the covenant was applicable to all of Abraham’s descendants, Isaac’s position being so clearly stated and understood. No one has ever seriously argued that it applied to all of Abraham’s many descendants.
You say that “IF however (as everyone believes) the covenant was made only with Isaac (as shown by the continued reading of context) then this implies naturally that the covenant was conditional after all.”
Saying that the covenant was not unconditional because it was limited to descendants through Isaac involves a confusion of terms.
Saying that it will be carried out by God without regard to Abraham’s performance make’s it unconditional. Saying that it applies only to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac makes it conditional. So the convenant was unconditional in that it did not depend on Abraham’s performance, but conditional in that it was applied to specific people only.
I do not see the benefit of this sort of theologizing. Everyone understands that the covenant was unconditional in one sense, yet still limited to specific people, and I don’t know what is the benefit of all of this detailed analysis of the obvious.
I do not consider myself a dispensationalist, but it is obvious that what God revealed to Moses was something different from what he revealed to Abraham. One could say that the laws revealed to Moses were merely an extension and deepening of the original covenant with Abraham, but they were still significantly different. But I don’t know why anyone has to make a big philosophy out of such obvious things.
"walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you" (Gen 17:1+2) Am not sure how anyone can conclude that THESE words = a unconditional covenant. The very use of the word THAT has very obvious English language conditions. The ONLY way people think that this covenant is not conditioned on Abraham's being faithful (walk before me and be blameless, that..) is because they have been told to believe so by well known preachers and churches for a century. Anyone who approaches this passage with a clean slate (theologically -- which granted is very difficult to do) would not come to the "unconditional" conclusion. I grant you that I was being somewhat "snarky" with my comment about the other children -- this was merely to point out that people approach texts with presuppositions and then read those presuppositions INTO the text. There isn't a single "unconditional" covenant in the Bible. God may in his sovereignty provide the means of man's obedience & faith, but the covenant is still conditioned on those being fulfilled. Your comment "Everyone understands that the covenant was unconditional in one sense, yet still limited to specific people" -- is precisely what I was aiming to refute. It's true that the majority of people approach this passage this way -- but the passage itself has sufficient context to prove this is wrong.
This conversation originally began with Genesis 12:7 which states “Unto thy seed will I give this land.”
This, as stated, does seem to apply to all of Abraham’s descendants – however, no one with any serious interest in this question has not read the other passages in the Old and New Testaments which limit it to Isaac (for example, Genesis 17:19).
So, I questioned your using that verse in isolation.
But, your point was to prove that the covenant was not unconditional, but rather conditional, in that it was limited to Isaac. Your larger purpose, was, in your words:
“The grand issue is that Dispensationalists claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional and it is an entirely different covenant than the one made with or through Moses. The bible doesn't make this hard distinction nor does it ever claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional. Once you see that -- then the whole underpinning of the Dispensationalist argument starts to crumble.”
I don’t consider myself to be a dispensationalist, and am not really too interested in it. I listened to a dispensationalist presentation in church one time and think we need to spend more time on the sermon on the mount. I have recently spent more time considering “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and what that means to me personally than I have over the question of whether or not God’s covenant with Abraham was conditional or unconditional.
I can see how the covenant might be both conditional and unconditional. God told Abraham that in him would all of the nations of the earth be blessed. That has come to pass through faith in Christ, according to the express will of God, in spite of the many instances of Jewish unbelief and disobedience. When the Jews openly disobeyed God he did not say, “I am cancelling the covenant.”
On the other hand, the covenant allows for punishments for disobedience, so their being blessed in the land is conditional in a sense, and blessings or punishments are related to human performance.
As to the convenant with Abraham (A) being entirely different from the covenant made with Moses (B), they are obviously not identical. But that does not mean there is no connection between them. If parents say to their teenager we will buy you a car (A), but you will be responsible for cleaning, gas and maintenance (B), those are different but related.
In your most recent comment, you cite Genesis 17:1-2, "walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you" (Gen 17:1+2) and conclude that this cannot possibly be unconditional.
That sounds very reasonable. However, we read in Genesis chapter 20 that Abraham lacked faith in God, was afraid, and lied about Sarah being his wife. So what did God say? “Since you failed of perfection the Covenant is now cancelled?" The covenant remained intact in spite of Abraham’s imperfection.
So, I think the covenant was in some sense unconditional – for if it were dependent upon human performance it would be unstable and uncertain, and liable to be cancelled at any moment.
But as I read I Peter about the importance of holiness and righteousness I do not see that dispensationalism is at all relevant to me.
I think you have misread my article. My contention was that the Dispensationalists claim that the promises are unconditional and if so then they would also apply to his other sons. I never claimed & in fact I stated clearly this is not what I believe. No one who reads that passage comes to the conclusion that Ishmael will receive the land — but the Dispensationalists claim based on 1 NT text that I believe is twisted that there are no conditions to the Abrahamic covenant and that is simply untrue
I was rebutting the arguments "made by a Dispensationalist - a well known one here in Australia" - if you read the article you might have realised that. You are being somewhat vitriolic which does not make your points true. You claim you cannot read the whole article because it is full of false and misleading statements -- to know that you would have to have read it. So either (a) you haven't read it and are just accusing me anyway - or (b) you have read it and are actually lying. Please understand that for all the other people reading these comments, you are demonstrating that you are not willing to engage in irenic debate you are just wanting to slander..
I lost a friend because I said dispensationalism was not christian. He took it as an attack to his faith as christian. Indeed, it has many similarities with messianic judaism. Many doctrines taint christianity, passing a message that's not in the Bible.
Replacement theology is total rubbish, Israel is God’s plan to be His glory on the earth! God has nothing to do with the current church system! The church System is totally man made period!
Brother, thanks for taking the time to write such a long critique. I’m going to be blunt but (I hope) clear: you’re not actually describing my position, and a lot of what you call “Dispensationalism” is a stitched-together scarecrow.
Let me answer you on your own terms: text, context, and consistency.
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1. The “Darby invented it” trope
We’ve been here before.
Yes, Darby and Scofield systematized a framework in the 1800s. No, they didn’t invent:
• a future earthly kingdom (Rev 20; Isa 2, 11; Zech 14),
• a distinction between Israel and the Church (Rom 9–11; Eph 2–3), or
• the idea that God administers history in different stewardships/“dispensations” (Eph 1:10; 3:2; Col 1:25).
Call it “futurist premillennialism,” “dispensations,” or something else—those categories are already sitting in the text before Darby was born. Every theological camp has a later label. That doesn’t make the underlying exegesis automatically suspect.
If we’re going to swing the “late system” hammer, it falls just as hard on Augustine’s amillennialism, the Reformers’ state-church assumptions, and plenty of redemptive-historical grids.
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2. Two peoples? No—one redeemed people, distinct callings
You keep repeating that Dispensationalists teach “two plans, two peoples.” That’s simply not my position.
• There is one way of salvation for Jew and Gentile—by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Christ (Eph 2:8–9; Rom 3–4).
• There is one redeemed people in glory—every tribe, tongue, people, and nation around the Lamb (Rev 5:9–10).
• But within that one redeemed people, Scripture still recognizes distinctions of role and promise: Jew/Gentile, Israel/Church, nations/Israel in the Kingdom (Rom 11; Isa 2; Zech 14).
Galatians 3:28 doesn’t erase created distinctions; it means they don’t bar anyone from full standing in Christ. In the New Jerusalem you still see twelve tribes on the gates and twelve apostles on the foundations (Rev 21:12–14). Unity in Christ does not mean theological blur.
So no, I don’t teach “two ways of salvation” or “two peoples of God.” I teach one Savior, one cross, one redeemed family—and a God who keeps every covenant exactly as He spoke it.
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3. The Abrahamic covenant: unconditional at the root
You accuse me of “wooden literalism” in Genesis 17 and then build an entire syllogism on Ishmael. But Genesis itself dismantles your argument.
• Genesis 15: God alone passes between the pieces. Abraham is asleep. That is the classic picture of a unilateral covenant. God binds Himself to fulfill the land/seed/blessing promise.
• Genesis 17: circumcision is the sign. An uncircumcised individual is “cut off from his people”—that affects his participation in the blessing, not God’s faithfulness to the covenant itself.
• Genesis 17:19–21 explicitly narrows the covenant:
“My covenant I will establish with Isaac… But My covenant I will establish with Isaac.”
That’s the Spirit’s own answer to your Ishmael syllogism.
The exile doesn’t prove the covenant failed; it proves the curses of the Mosaic administration fell exactly as threatened, while the Abrahamic root remained (Lev 26:40–45; Jer 31:35–37). A temporarily displaced people does not equal a canceled promise.
If you want to argue the land promises are now spiritualized in Christ and the Church, that’s fine—but don’t pretend Genesis 15–17 reads naturally that way. You have to import that from your system.
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4. Romans 11: the olive tree is not “the secular state of Israel,” but it is ethnic Israel
You keep saying we “smuggle in” the modern state of Israel into Romans 11. I don’t. Paul isn’t talking about the Knesset; he’s talking about ethnic Israel in redemptive history.
• Paul contrasts “they” (Israel) with “you” (Gentiles) all through the chapter (vv. 11–13, 25). That’s corporate and ethnic, not just “the saved of all ages.”
• “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (v.2) points to that same corporate Israel, just as in the Elijah story—Israel as a nation under judgment, yet with a preserved remnant.
• The whole logic of the olive tree only works if the natural branches really are Israel and can be “grafted in again” (v.23–24).
If “all Israel” in v.26 is just “all the saved,” Paul’s argument collapses. The Gentile believers he’s writing to are already saved. The whole point is future national turning after the “fulness of the Gentiles has come in.”
You appeal to Rom 8:29–30 and Rom 9 as though they erase Rom 11. They don’t. Election unto salvation and God’s corporate, historical dealings with a nation are related but not identical categories. Paul can say “not all who are of Israel are Israel” (9:6) and still say “all Israel will be saved” (11:26) without redefining “Israel” as “everyone who believes, Jew or Gentile.” The second use is clearly corporate and ethnic.
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5. Ezekiel 36–37 and Zechariah 12: telescoping isn’t “Dispensational invention”
You insist Ezekiel 36–37 must be exhausted in the post-exilic return, and that Zech 12 is fulfilled at the cross or in AD 70. That’s assertion, not exegesis.
Ezekiel 36–37 contains elements never realized in the post-exilic community:
• A nation sprinkled, given a new heart, and indwelt by the Spirit as a whole (36:25–27). Post-exilic Israel did not become a regenerate, Spirit-indwelt nation.
• They are to “dwell in the land… forever” with David’s greater Son ruling them, “they shall not defile themselves any more,” and “the nations shall know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel” (37:23–28). That has not happened yet in history.
Zechariah 12:10ff is explicitly reused in the NT as future:
• John 19 cites it as a type when Jesus is pierced, but Revelation 1:7 applies “every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn” in an eschatological frame. That’s not exhausted in one Roman execution squad in the first century.
Prophetic telescoping—near and far horizons in one oracle—is not a dispensational gimmick. Jesus Himself reads Isaiah 61:1–2, stops halfway through a sentence, and says “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18–21). The “day of vengeance” waits for His return. Same text, two comings.
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6. “Literal” isn’t wooden—and you’re not doing what you claim
You accuse dispensationalists of “wooden literalism” and then of not being literal enough (Ezekiel = nukes, Russia, etc.). With respect: popular prophecy charts are not the standard of exegesis.
Taking genre seriously—recognizing hyperbole, metaphor, apocalyptic imagery, Hebrew idiom—is part of literal interpretation. Literal = according to the literary intention. When I say “I could eat a horse,” nobody imagines actual horse-meat. In the same way, acknowledging Hebrew war-rhetoric or prophetic symbolism doesn’t authorize us to rip Israel out of Israel and pour the Church into every text.
Your own method is not “grammatical-historical plus Christ.” It’s:
Start with a prior commitment to one people, one covenant, national Israel fulfilled in the Church;
then reread all OT covenant language through that lens, regardless of what the words would have meant to the original hearers.
That’s exactly the kind of thing you charge dispensationalists with—only in reverse.
Christ does fulfill all God’s promises (2 Cor 1:20). Amen. But fulfillment in Christ does not mean cancellation of the original referent. The resurrected Messiah reigning on David’s throne in Jerusalem, over a restored Israel and the nations, is the Christ-centered fulfillment of the covenants, not a step backwards into “Judaizing.”
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7. On Israel, antisemitism, and “blind support”
You close by suggesting that a literal, future for Israel leads Christians to “blindly support” a secular war machine. That’s a caricature.
I don’t give the modern state of Israel a blank check. I do say:
• God’s covenants with Abraham and David are still in play.
• The Jewish people remain “beloved for the sake of the fathers” even in unbelief (Rom 11:28–29).
• Gentile believers are warned not to be arrogant toward the natural branches (Rom 11:18–21).
• Antisemitism—secular, religious, “academic,” or dressed up in theology—is sin.
We can critique any nation’s policies without denying what God has clearly said about His purposes for Israel.
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8. The real issue: which grid is allowed to correct the other?
At bottom, this isn’t about “who loves Jesus more” or “who reads the Bible.” It’s about which grid we allow to be corrected by the text.
My commitment is simple:
• Let the OT covenants say what they say, to whom they were said.
• Let the NT expand, clarify, and apply—but not erase or retroactively rewrite.
• Let Israel be Israel, the Church be the Church, and Christ be the center of it all—without flattening every distinction into one amorphous category.
You’re convinced dispensationalism is a bad lens. I’m convinced your Augustinian/one-people grid forces you to spiritualize too much of the plain sense.
We can keep talking about specific passages if you like—Daniel 9, Revelation 19–20, Romans 9–11, the New Covenant texts. But let’s at least be honest about where the real disagreement lies.
Grace and peace,
Robert
Thanks for your indepth comments. I think you should write an artice - separately to rebut mine - rather than this comment that few might read. In summary from me. "Let the NT expand, clarify and apply but not erase or retroactively rewrite" - whilst I did make a claim that would fit this assertion in a hard sense. Who is to say your assertion is right? What if the NT authors writing under the inspiration of Holy Spirit did just that? Should we not seek to bow to scripture? My point is this - when the NT authors clarify OT promises that sounded national & physical in the OT, as "spiritual in the New" -- your view would be -- we must continue to have a physical fulfilment irrespective of the authors of the NT -- and I would say, NO the authors of the NT had the right to make bold claims -- under the inspiration fo the HS to show what was the real meaning of those "physical promises" in the OT
Biola University has one of the best debate teams in the nation. And honestly—that’s awesome. I respect the discipline, the training, the mental sharpness it takes to do that well.
But I’ve never been wired around winning debates.
I’ve been wired around reaching souls.
And it seems to me the former often defeats the latter.
Not because truth doesn’t matter. It does. Not because Christians shouldn’t be able to give an answer. We should. But because debate, as it’s commonly practiced, doesn’t just test ideas—it tests egos. It turns conversation into combat. It trains people to score points, to land zingers, to corner an opponent, to “own” someone publicly. And even when the theology is right, the spirit can be wrong.
You can win the argument and lose the person.
You can walk away “victorious” and leave someone more hardened than they were before you spoke.
Because most people don’t come to Christ because they watched their favorite side dominate a thread. They come because the Spirit of God pierces them with truth—often delivered through humility, patience, and love.
Debate tends to reward speed over carefulness.
Performance over prayer.
Confidence over contrition.
The appearance of strength over the fruit of the Spirit.
And that’s why I’m cautious.
Jesus didn’t build disciples through public sparring matches. Yes—He answered objections. Yes—He exposed error. But He wasn’t trying to rack up wins. He was calling people to repent, to believe, to submit to the Word. The goal wasn’t “Who looked smarter?” The goal was, “Who will bow?”
That’s still my concern today.
If the format encourages vanity, it will produce vanity—even if the content is orthodox. If it trains the flesh to fight, it won’t automatically train the heart to yield. And in our age especially, debates become content—clipped, shared, applauded—while souls get treated like collateral damage.
So I’m not against serious engagement. I’m not afraid of disagreement. And I’m not unwilling to clarify what I believe.
I just don’t want truth to be delivered in a way that makes the person feel like the target.
If someone wants to rebut my article, fine—write a separate piece. Open the text. Show your work. Let people read it without the adrenaline of a cage match. That feels more honest, more careful, and more likely to reach the ones who are actually listening.
Because I’m not trying to win.
I’m trying to be faithful.
And I’d rather reach a soul than win a debate.
I’m not doing debates. They too easily cater to ego rather than godliness. Jesus didn’t build His ministry on public sparring matches—He preached, taught, and called people to submit to Scripture. If you want to rebut my position, publish a separate article and I’ll consider it carefully.
There are many non-dispensationalist zionists as well. For some reason these arguments always collapse on dispys, but Edward’s, Ryle, Spurgeon, Hodges, etc all saw a future where the Jews were regathered to Israel.
It’s kind of amazing that Christian theology still argues against this. A really easy way to know if God has remained faithful to the Abrahamic covenant is by opening your eyes and seeing Jews in the land. If this covenant was broken they would have never returned. No need to work oneself into a theological pretzel.
NB - I never argued against what you are claiming. My contention was merely that God's people have always been ONE people, by promise. Gentiles have been grafter into those. Zionism is a very broad term that means a lot of different things to different people. Seeing Jews IN the land as "confirmation" of God's promise to Abraham, flatly contradicts the whole message of let's say Paul's letter to the Galatian church for one.. God's providence has allowed the Jews to return to their physical homeland - one can hold to that position (as I do) and yet not see that as a fulfilment of the promises to Abraham (as I do) since that flatly denies much of the New Testament
There was a famous conversation between Karl Barth & Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod. When they first met, Barth said: "you Jews have the promises but we Christians have the fulfillment." To which Wyschogrod replied, "When it comes to human promises, one may cancel or take them back, but a promise from God is not like this. If we have the promises then we also have the fulfillment." Anyways, throughout the entire OT witness of God's judgement, God never identifies the Jews as anything but His people, even in their disobedience. Their remaining His people is actually what God says shamed Him - it is because they are His people that their behavior is so offensive to God.
Galatians, it could be argued (besides being Paul's first letter) is obviously polemic against the Judaizers and is not teaching about the nature of Israel and actually seems to contradict much of Romans 9-11 where Paul teaches with clarity about the nature of Israel. (I understand many Reformed would synthesize Rom 9-11 a certain way to tilt towards their understanding of Galatians.) It also should be said that the Romans letter, besides being the most recent letter is the apex of Paul's thinking on Israel.
I also find the word "providence" you use a squishy word for a reality that seemingly lines up with an explicit covenant. Especially from a Calvinistic/deterministic worldview. I am not suggesting that land saves anyone, but it seems hard to deny that this seeming faithfulness is not from the hand of God becuase of it's visible covenantal witness - hopefully as precursor - to a much greater spiritual restoration of the Jewish people when they do recognize Jesus.
You have to deny the 100's of OT warnings that God will vomit his people out fo the land, will reneg on his land promises, will turn the land into a curse etc etc etc in order to arrive at the "hard conclusion" that the land promise somehow trumps over everything -- no matter what. God covenantal promises always have stipulations, that's repeated over and over again in all of scripture. Israel today is a secular, mostly atheist nation -- not covenantally faithful at all. It's not antisemitic to say this. I am of Jewish descent myself. Your camp (am not saying you) claims that the "return to the land" is the fulfilment of biblical promises when the very promises claimed - clearly stipulate that God will ONLY be faithful IF his people humble themselves in repentance. The return after the 2nd exile was demonstrably one of such repentance - as can be seen in the books of Ezra & Nehemiah -- not perfect repentance - but repentance nonetheless. This is demonstrably not so in the modern nation of Israel. Romans 11 is about the salvation of the Jews -- them turning to Christ -- which is happening in small numbers all over the globe - no nation in the middle east is required for this and in fact most Messianic Jews don't live in the small middle eastern nation - the people that live there are mostly atheists/secularists + a small minority of extreme Jews who think it is their god-given right to ignore the property rights of palestinians. And yes the palestinians have an equal group of murdering terrorists among them. Nothing particularly blessed about this nation
I definitely don’t disagree with the seriousness of the consequences as it relates to the land. I would consider the 1,900 years of diaspora to be a pretty fair judgement on Jewish flesh, if that is what you are after. But, to be fair to the text - in every case that it says this judgement - it is always followed by the idea that this judgement won’t last forever. It is deeply ironic to me that your (not you) camp will of course see 70 & 135 AD as Gods judgement, something I agree with - but - then don’t extend the same line of reasoning to their return. I don’t know how you can have it both ways. If gods judgment was permanent they would have never returned to the land.
There are multiple strands of teaching as it relates to the land. The deuteromic strand does indeed require repentance before restoration, but there are other OT texts that speak of a physical restoration followed by a spiritual restoration. In this line of theology it is reversed to what you are implying.
I’ve lived in Israel for years, I am not oblivious to the many problems Israel or any other nation has. Frankly, this view seems to protest too much against reality. “Providence”, to me at least, is when I take my pregnant wife to the hospital and a parking spot in front opens up. I don’t see how “providence” gathers millions of refugees from all over the world and places them in a nation surrounded by their enemies and yet somehow they flourish.
Anyways, not trying to blow up your comments here. Thanks for the interaction.
“By their fruits you will know them.”
That’s not my test—that’s Jesus’ (Matthew 7:16).
For 1,600 years, a certain stream of theology—rooted in Augustine and carried forward in much of medieval Catholicism and later Reformed tradition—taught that the Jewish people were a cursed, rejected, Christ-killing people, permanently set aside while the “true Israel” (the Church) replaced them. In that framework, the Jew became the perpetual object lesson, not the beloved nation with irrevocable promises (Romans 11:28–29). If a people are treated as beyond God’s mercy, it’s a tragically short step to treating them as less than fully human.
Did every Augustinian or Reformed Christian hate Jews? Of course not. Many loved them, some even died resisting evil. But ideas have consequences. Centuries of sermons, councils, and catechisms that painted Jews as rejected, blind, and uniquely guilty helped create the cultural soil in Europe where pogroms, ghettos, expulsions—and eventually Auschwitz—could grow. The Nazis were not orthodox Christians, but they weaponized a long-standing church narrative about “the Jew.”
My point isn’t to score denominational points; it’s to call for repentance and clarity. Any theology—Catholic, Reformed, Protestant, whatever—that contradicts Romans 11, erases God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel, or dehumanizes the Jewish people is bearing rotten fruit and needs to be abandoned. The God of Abraham keeps His promises. The Jew is not God-forsaken; Israel is still beloved for the fathers’ sake. As followers of the Jewish Messiah, we dare not speak—or think—of His people in any way that helped pave the road to those gates.
Dispensation means God addressing certain periods/eras. There are 7, and they align with creation Week. A total of 7,000 years, the last 1,000 being the Millennial Kingdom.
It doesn't mean replacement theology at all, it has nothing at all to do with Replacement theology; the replacement people don't even understand dispensation at all, that's why they think they are a replacement.
This is a good article but tries to fight too many battles at once. Most Christians experience anxiety about the end times not because the Bible is fearful, but because popular theological frameworks misalign time, promise, and identity.
No Fear Eschatology reveals how Scripture itself offers clarity and confidence by interpreting Old Testament prophecy through Christ, not geopolitics, fear, or speculation.
I would recommend my book on the Olivet Discourse "The End or the Beginning" - it's available on Amazon and is an indepth study on the three parallel accounts in the gospels - if you do buy/read it, I would even more appreciate if you give it a review - God bless
Excellent article
replacement theology is replacing Christians as the chosen people with the antichrists
Well if you interpret that in a hard literal way -- then God failed since the nation of Israel has ceased to exist in a national sense the first time in the second exile to Assyria & Babylon, and then most certainly after Ad70 and then for nearly two thousand years. The alternative is to interpret this inline with the revelation given to us by the Apostles in the New Testament who call the Christians (both Jew and Gentile) a "Royal Priesthood & a Holy Nation" - so yes God has indeed been faithful -- it's just not in the way some interpret i.e. in the secular nation of Israel today...
You are making my point for me - thanks
Please read the article and perhaps first read the article I was rebutting. I never claimed this was my position nor did I claim this was biblical. Those premises are based on the stated assertions by the Dispensationalist who wrote the original article - namely that the Abrahamic covenant (the land part) came without any conditions — if this WERE (not was) true then I simply aimed to state the consequences as a logical sylogism. All hypothetical. I hope this makes sense of why I wrote what I wrote. I never once stated that this is is what I believe or that this is biblical. It was simply the logical conclusion of the Dispensationalist assertions
I understood you were refuting a faulty syllogism, but had never heard of anyone making the first premise, that all of Abraham's were entitled to the land. have no idea where you got that. But anyway, I deleted the comment.
Thanks for your response - if you read the article I was aiming to rebut -- the claim in the article was that the Abrahamic covenant was unconditional -- and given that when God first gave this covenant - he said "to your offspring" -- IF the covenant is unconditional then it must be to ALL his offspring as that is the natural way to read the passage (without the conditions that come from reading the context) - IF however (as everyone believes) the covenant was made only with Isaac (as shown by the continued reading of context) then this implies naturally that the covenant was conditional after all. The grand issue is that Dispensationalists claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional and it is an entirely different covenant than the one made with or through Moses. The bible doesn't make this hard distinction nor does it ever claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional. Once you see that -- then the whole underpinning of the Dispensationalist argument starts to crumble.
I answered your other comment too quickly at the end of a long day so am glad to say more about it now.
I did look at the article you linked to, and it does say in Genesis 17:7 that
“And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.”
This was before Isaac was born, but anyone who quoted this could easily have thought it was not necessary to explain that this was later narrowed to Isaac and anyone with any interest in this subject knows that.
I don’t know of anyone who has ever stated that the covenant was applicable to all of Abraham’s descendants, Isaac’s position being so clearly stated and understood. No one has ever seriously argued that it applied to all of Abraham’s many descendants.
You say that “IF however (as everyone believes) the covenant was made only with Isaac (as shown by the continued reading of context) then this implies naturally that the covenant was conditional after all.”
Saying that the covenant was not unconditional because it was limited to descendants through Isaac involves a confusion of terms.
Saying that it will be carried out by God without regard to Abraham’s performance make’s it unconditional. Saying that it applies only to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac makes it conditional. So the convenant was unconditional in that it did not depend on Abraham’s performance, but conditional in that it was applied to specific people only.
I do not see the benefit of this sort of theologizing. Everyone understands that the covenant was unconditional in one sense, yet still limited to specific people, and I don’t know what is the benefit of all of this detailed analysis of the obvious.
I do not consider myself a dispensationalist, but it is obvious that what God revealed to Moses was something different from what he revealed to Abraham. One could say that the laws revealed to Moses were merely an extension and deepening of the original covenant with Abraham, but they were still significantly different. But I don’t know why anyone has to make a big philosophy out of such obvious things.
"walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you" (Gen 17:1+2) Am not sure how anyone can conclude that THESE words = a unconditional covenant. The very use of the word THAT has very obvious English language conditions. The ONLY way people think that this covenant is not conditioned on Abraham's being faithful (walk before me and be blameless, that..) is because they have been told to believe so by well known preachers and churches for a century. Anyone who approaches this passage with a clean slate (theologically -- which granted is very difficult to do) would not come to the "unconditional" conclusion. I grant you that I was being somewhat "snarky" with my comment about the other children -- this was merely to point out that people approach texts with presuppositions and then read those presuppositions INTO the text. There isn't a single "unconditional" covenant in the Bible. God may in his sovereignty provide the means of man's obedience & faith, but the covenant is still conditioned on those being fulfilled. Your comment "Everyone understands that the covenant was unconditional in one sense, yet still limited to specific people" -- is precisely what I was aiming to refute. It's true that the majority of people approach this passage this way -- but the passage itself has sufficient context to prove this is wrong.
This conversation originally began with Genesis 12:7 which states “Unto thy seed will I give this land.”
This, as stated, does seem to apply to all of Abraham’s descendants – however, no one with any serious interest in this question has not read the other passages in the Old and New Testaments which limit it to Isaac (for example, Genesis 17:19).
So, I questioned your using that verse in isolation.
But, your point was to prove that the covenant was not unconditional, but rather conditional, in that it was limited to Isaac. Your larger purpose, was, in your words:
“The grand issue is that Dispensationalists claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional and it is an entirely different covenant than the one made with or through Moses. The bible doesn't make this hard distinction nor does it ever claim the covenant with Abraham was unconditional. Once you see that -- then the whole underpinning of the Dispensationalist argument starts to crumble.”
I don’t consider myself to be a dispensationalist, and am not really too interested in it. I listened to a dispensationalist presentation in church one time and think we need to spend more time on the sermon on the mount. I have recently spent more time considering “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and what that means to me personally than I have over the question of whether or not God’s covenant with Abraham was conditional or unconditional.
I can see how the covenant might be both conditional and unconditional. God told Abraham that in him would all of the nations of the earth be blessed. That has come to pass through faith in Christ, according to the express will of God, in spite of the many instances of Jewish unbelief and disobedience. When the Jews openly disobeyed God he did not say, “I am cancelling the covenant.”
On the other hand, the covenant allows for punishments for disobedience, so their being blessed in the land is conditional in a sense, and blessings or punishments are related to human performance.
As to the convenant with Abraham (A) being entirely different from the covenant made with Moses (B), they are obviously not identical. But that does not mean there is no connection between them. If parents say to their teenager we will buy you a car (A), but you will be responsible for cleaning, gas and maintenance (B), those are different but related.
In your most recent comment, you cite Genesis 17:1-2, "walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you" (Gen 17:1+2) and conclude that this cannot possibly be unconditional.
That sounds very reasonable. However, we read in Genesis chapter 20 that Abraham lacked faith in God, was afraid, and lied about Sarah being his wife. So what did God say? “Since you failed of perfection the Covenant is now cancelled?" The covenant remained intact in spite of Abraham’s imperfection.
So, I think the covenant was in some sense unconditional – for if it were dependent upon human performance it would be unstable and uncertain, and liable to be cancelled at any moment.
But as I read I Peter about the importance of holiness and righteousness I do not see that dispensationalism is at all relevant to me.
I think you have misread my article. My contention was that the Dispensationalists claim that the promises are unconditional and if so then they would also apply to his other sons. I never claimed & in fact I stated clearly this is not what I believe. No one who reads that passage comes to the conclusion that Ishmael will receive the land — but the Dispensationalists claim based on 1 NT text that I believe is twisted that there are no conditions to the Abrahamic covenant and that is simply untrue
I was rebutting the arguments "made by a Dispensationalist - a well known one here in Australia" - if you read the article you might have realised that. You are being somewhat vitriolic which does not make your points true. You claim you cannot read the whole article because it is full of false and misleading statements -- to know that you would have to have read it. So either (a) you haven't read it and are just accusing me anyway - or (b) you have read it and are actually lying. Please understand that for all the other people reading these comments, you are demonstrating that you are not willing to engage in irenic debate you are just wanting to slander..