Does the fact that dispensational theology is a recent development argue against its legitimacy?

There is the "intellectual" attack. It is noted that the process of earning a doctor's degree has delivered the person from the dispensational teaching in which he was reared.[17] Needless to say, there are men with doctor's degrees who support the dispensational approach. However, unworthy as it may be, the attack is a powerful one. It implies that, whereas dispensationalism is something that may inadvertently be learned in Sunday school or at a Bible school, greater intellectual maturity will certainly lead to its abandonment.

There is the historical attack. This will be examined in more detail later (see chapter 4). It seeks to prove that since dispensationalism in its present form is apparently recent it cannot be true; for surely someone would have taught it in the first eighteen centuries of the history of the church if it were true. Some who use this device to discredit dispensationalism are honest enough to admit that history is never the test of truth -- the Bible and only the Bible is. But they persist in using the approach and leave the impression that history is a partially valid test, if not the final test. Dale Moody writes, "Dispensationalism with the modern form of seven dispensations, eight covenants, and a Pretribulation Rapture is a deviation that has not been traced beyond 1830."[18]

The new "progressive" dispensationalism (see chapter 9), while posing as a legitimate development within the dispensational tradition, appears rather to be a distinct change from classic dispensationalism since it seeks "dispensational structures that are more accurate biblically. "[22] Does this not imply that classic dispensationalism is less accurate biblically? One progressive views classic dispensationalism as "the cloud" under which he lives.[23] But the changes of progressive dispensationalism will presumably dispel that cloud.

Of course, the ultimate test of the truth of any doctrine is whether it is in accord with biblical revelation. The fact that the church taught something in the first century does not make it true, and, likewise, if the church did not teach something until the twentieth century, it is not necessarily false. Tertullian, Anseim, Luther, Calvin, Darby, Scofield, and the Westminster divines were all instruments in the hands of God to minister truth to His church, but none of them was perfect in all his thinking. People do not make a doctrine right or wrong. Defective life never enhances doctrine, but neither does it necessarily falsify it. Earning a doctors degree may make one an expert in a particular field of study, but it does not make one infallible or without need of further light on a given subject. An understanding of the truth of the Bible can be communicated by the Holy Spirit in and through the formal education situation and procedures, and it can be communicated apart from them.

72 If you ask me what I think, I think they used, like other men, the best grounds they thought they could find, and, when the heretics or the pope pleaded tradition, said that all must be proved by scripture. When they were, as Tertullian, perplexed by their subtle quotations of scripture, instead of doing as the Lord did when Satan quoted it, quoting another passage, which forbade what Satan used it for, they turned to tradition, but not to learn doctrines not in scripture, but to prove that of the heretics to be new. As a mere argument as to fact, it might prove it so far; but if a doctrine be in scripture, clearly it is not new but from the beginning, and it is able to make the man of God perfect. What Dr. Milner has said of tradition is at any rate entirely unfounded. What is of more importance than all, the blessed Lord has condemned it as the false foundation of His enemies, and that God was worshipped in vain by men who followed it.

You will not disapprove my following the advice you give the readers of your Theological Tracts (which the Holy Spirit Himself gives us), by proving what you have presented to them, as well as what is presented by the Protestant Churches. I have proved the latter now many years ago, at least in some measure. But the apostle tells me to prove all things; and my experience teaches me that it is quite as needful to prove new things as old. Indeed the need of it is more obvious; for old may be approved by the long experience of true saints as sure ground for their souls, and what is new has certainly to be proved at first. The approbation of centuries has no weight at all with me. Nor even is the constant faith of the saints in all ages a measure or a proof of truth; but neither is a light disregard of it a proof of a state of soul which gives competency to judge of truth. Christ brought in new things; but the well-instructed scribe possessed the old, and held them fast. Our whole enquiry must be, as to either new or old — Are they in the word?

N*. We have gained three points. The heretics first contended for some doctrines delivered by tradition, and not contained in scripture. The Fathers resisted this. Next, when tradition was first spoken of by the early Fathers, they used it as a testimony of the churches confirming the doctrines taught from scripture, not as containing additional doctrines. Thirdly, as to the basis laid by Tertullian, on whom they so much rely, it fails altogether as a secure proof, and what it does testify of condemns Rome. I add, that they used it so far with a good intention that their object was to shew what Christ and His apostles had originally taught, and that they had taught everything openly to all, in order to reject novel doctrines introduced subsequently. Their insisting on having what was at the beginning, what Tertullian for example asserts, "That that which was from the beginning is true," is perfectly just. This is what we insist on. And we condemn the Romanists because all their peculiar doctrines are novelties, the dates or gradual introduction of them being historically demonstrable.

N*. There you are, I dare say, in your element, Mr. D. The traditions and doctrines of men have all weight with those of the school you belong to. But you know it is written, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," and I suspect, like many who rest upon them, you have not searched them. A man's writing a thousand years ago does not make his word to be more the truth in the least. They were not inspired. We are specially taught in view of the turning away from the truth which had already begun in the apostle's days, the mystery of iniquity being already at work, and warned that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, so that the last days of the church would be perilous times — we are warned, I say, to hold fast by the Scriptures, to know of whom we have learned anything; that that which was in the beginning should abide in us. Hearing the apostles themselves, is made a test of truth. In a word, we are carefully warned against trusting anything but what came out first and by inspiration from God, which no one pretends was the case with those you call the Fathers, who after all were only prelates and doctors of bygone ages whose doctrine was very loose and uncertain. The Fathers generally before the Council of Nice were unquestionably unsound as to the divinity of the Lord, and, after it, the church was whatever the Emperor made it. Athanasius was excommunicated, the Luciferians who held by him were condemned as a sect by Jerome. Hosius, who presided at Nice, gave way; two popes were Arians, or consecrated by the Arians, Felix and Liberius, and the universal church displayed a scene of dispute and contention which never ended in the East till sunk under the power of the Turks, and in the West till Bernard (the last of the Fathers) declared Antichrist was sitting at Rome. But none hardly of the early Fathers were sound in the faith. As to this particular doctrine as we have seen, one whom Bellarmine calls a most learned and acute doctor did not believe it. John Scotus declares it was never known to be of faith till the fourth Council of Lateran in 1215. And all Bellarmine has to say is that it was in a Roman Council, in the case of Berengarius; that is in 1060 and 1079.

PAUL'S exhortation to the younger preacher, Timothy, has come home to many with great power in recent years. As a result, there has been a return to more ancient methods of Bible study, which had been largely neglected during the centuries of the Church's drift from apostolic testimony. Augustine's words have had a re-affirmation: "Distinguish the ages, and the Scriptures are plain." And so there has been great emphasis put in many quarters, and rightly so, upon the study of what is commonly known as "dispensational" truth. This line of teaching, if kept within Scriptural bounds, cannot but prove a great blessing to the humble student of the Word of God who desires to know His will or plan in His dealings with men from creation to the coming glory. A careful examination of the volume of Revelation shows that God's ways with men have differed in various ages. This must be taken into account if one would properly apprehend His truth.

So this "piece of brass" — for so the pious king contemptuously calls it — must now be destroyed. Antiquity it had, but what was antiquity? The fact is that almost all the departures that we see around us now are far from novelties. They are ancient enough. The second century and the third saw most of the evil things that are now floating about in Christendom. They can therefore boast of antiquity; but what the Christian feasts on is apostolicity, not merely antiquity. Anything that is short of the apostles is too new for a Christian, and ought to be considered so. That is, we are built not merely upon the ancient church; we are built upon the foundation of Christ's holy apostles and prophets, and there is no stable foundation since then. It is in vain therefore to tell me that such a thing came in since the apostles. That is the very reason why I will not hear of it. It would be a little more to the purpose to show me what was during the apostles, or rather, to show me what was sanctioned by the apostles, for I do not doubt that even when they were on earth there were evil things to be found, as indeed the New Testament largely shows.

It may sound wise for Christians to keep close to their old tenets; it is of faith to cleave only to what is revealed. Apostolic antiquity is alone reliable. What came in since is but human and erroneous, however ancient.

In the face of a preparation so dark and ominous, which scripture announces as certain (2 Thess. 2:3), there are children of God all over the earth, who acknowledge with grateful thanksgiving His faithfulness in turning the attacks of Satan and his dupes to their confirmation in the faith, and the more profound enjoyment both of scripture and of Christ therein revealed by the Holy Spirit. May the reader by grace be helped to share a privilege which bespeaks itself divine, the best antidote to that unbelief which enfeebles where it does not quite destroy the divine energy of every revealed truth. To human tradition I give no real weight, less if possible to the speculations of men on grounds which they deem probable. As the traditional school is one form of rationalism, so is neo-criticism another, the one adding to God's word, the other taking from it, to His dishonour. Legitimate criticism is the servant of faith in seeking to eliminate errors of transcription; but it receives without question every word that was originally written. What is called "scientific inquiry" rises up in its empty pride against the divine authority of Christ, who has ruled what it dares to deny."