How this Materialistic Doctrine Came to Spread Like Leaven
Historically, we can see the influence of Darbyism which came to overlay the theology of early Pentecostal teaching and has grown its leaven thereafter. John Nelson Darby a British Bible teacher who had founded the Exclusive Brethren and influenced the Plymouth Brethren in the Nineteenth Century.
While Darby is considered by many as the father of dispensationalism as taught today, there were other futurists before him in history and this is key to understanding the nature of the of dispensationalism. Jesuits priests (Francesca Ribera and also Cardinal Robert Bellarmine) came up with the theology to counter the Sixteenth Century reformers’ (Luther’s) accusation that Pope Leo X was antichrist. That, they planned, would absolve Pope Leo X and the Roman Catholic church from Luther’s accusations. There was a lot of antichrist finger pointing, excommunication etc., going on. But much of what Martin Luther said of the politicised church was valid and needed to change.
Again, I remind the reader and myself that the church is Jesus’ precious bride and body. When we study its history and find errors, we are empowered by Him to forgive. Indeed, we are obliged to forgive and also to consider all the good that has come from the historic church.
Before the protestant reformation of the Sixteenth Century, the many layered hierarchies of the Roman Catholic church all held vested interests in the perpetuation of the political church and therefore were keen to oppose the reformers. Thus, the futurist theology was politically generated in Roman Catholicism in the Council of Trent from 1545 AD. It was a convenient political move and set a false futurist view of “the Day of the Lord” still believed by some Catholics today. It is little wonder then that Pentecostal churches, who picked up what Darby had used, soon began to mimic so much of the Vatican with their hierarchies, adoration of leaders, false prophecies, pecuniary foci and control of people.
The Roman Catholic institution had been labelled, “the whore of Babylon” by the protestants, and the pope its antichrist. A lot of unhelpful name calling went on. As part of the rebuttal to the “antichrist” label, these priests claimed a future earthly reign of a literal one thousand years in line with Catholic materialistic doctrines. The priests who wrote the material, were attempting to validate the current abusive religious situation. This lay a devilish foundation for political purposes which would later be picked up again and falsely presented as truth. We need be aware that the church in the west was deeply divided during the Reformation. Indeed, Europe was divided politically over the matter because so many principalities were linked in a church-state control of the people.
Later, a Spanish / Chilean Jesuit, Father Manuel Lacunza (1734 to 1801) wrote “The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty“, creating a futurist doctrine. Later Darby, Scofield and others picked up the doctrine, causing distressing division in Protestantism. The doctrine is such that believers fall away from what Jesus called “the weightier matters”, into fanciful guessing games based on news headlines of each day. By continually declaring that “things can’t get much worse in the world”, they world watch in hopes that they do get worse – as according to this skewed doctrine, that will herald their escape from a corrupt earth. The great escape / salvation is their rapture, a total misreading of scripture and a failure to see the audience, context and purpose of the apostles’ letters in the Bible.
As a result, the leaven spreads so that much of what is supposed to be God’s people salting the earth can become a backwards facing and religious institution. This has never been God’s intention.
From observation and visitation of many churches through working in interdenominational schools, we have seen how many Protestant churches have sadly embraced this other gospel of dispensationalism. It is very much a backwards step. Many charismatic churches began by declaring they would only preach the Bible. Yet the very doctrines they have left and preached against have become the things they have practiced, albeit in a different dress.
I write with some firmness on this subject because some of my own early theological training was under Pentecostal Bible teachers. What was distressing about this, was the number of such teachers who fell from grace and the number of churches that became legalistic to the point of becoming a closed cult. Such experiences are difficult for families and their children to recover from.
The doctrine is in clear contradiction to biblical eschatology and the gospel of Christ. It works to destroy ecclesial unity and love between the cessationists and the continuists. Like every other move of God to bring His ekklēsia out of the darkness, the Pentecostal revival of the early twentieth century was a valid move of God, from which we could have all learnt more. But conflicts of interest came in again to devour and set up carnal kingdoms with their hierarchies, and love affair with bigger buildings, leading to power grabs and more division and shame.
These “conflicting interests” are often demonic in nature, leading folk away from a humble life in the Holy Spirit.
What is most concerning today, as I have mentioned, is the infiltration of dispensational theology into evangelical and reformed churches.
When dispensational ideas are taught and preached, there is a shift in evangelism as the simple liberating Gospel of Christ alone through His Word alone is replaced by a complicated set of political fears and predictions that move like shifting sand across time – and news reports. Dispensationalism may have the appearance of building the body of Christ, but in fact, it does the opposite because it is based on a falsehood akin to legalism, begets fear and looks to a materialistic set of circumstances that are extra-biblical to answer the needs of people today. The very “end times” charts drawn up by dispensationalists portray a complicated set of “end time” circumstances which are never described by Jesus and have no basis in the book of Revelation. Yet believers readily fall for this and set a course to watch the world in order to come up with the latest “proof” to defend the Bible.
Evangelism based on fear is not how Jesus Christ operated. His only stern warnings were to the religious elite. To sinners He preached not fear, but love.
The Bible needs no proof, only proclamation with signs and wonders following. The world needs the witnesses who are willing to die to self for Christ. That is their calling. Love of neighbour and the brethren from our position in Christ as one is the witness that verifies Christ (John 17:21).
Dispensational mistaken teaching leads to many guessing games about geo-political events. Instead of studying the Bible from a Hebrew paradigm, the Bible is seen through the lens of contemporary news. People put themselves forward as prophetic ministries.
But prophecy in “this age” is for all believers to share forth the Word of God. It can be used to encourage and correct. But it is not future telling. And certainly, we waste the time we have been entrusted with when we start to make future predictions in God’s name.
Many false prophecies have been given. Christians are meant to “prophesy”. That is, to speak out the Word of God into the world to bless others. We bless and not curse. As a royal priesthood we make statements in line with God’s word and see those things come to pass.
But sadly, today, many Christian leaders are under the false impression that they are to be future tellers. That is an Old Covenant function. All prophecy under the Old Covenant pointed in one way or another to Jesus Christ.
Now any prophetic word uttered also points to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Indwelling King. He dwells in His people.
When false prophecies are given, especially about Jesus coming to rule in a geo-physical location, we can be assured those people have not fully understood God’s Word. I know, I had decades of hearing these false words. I even gave credit to them. And for a long time this dispensationalism held me down. This is because those who believe this, are still operating partially in an Old Covenant mindset. That’s why I listened, up until 2019, with one foot in the Old Covenant and one in the New. That’s syncretism. We see the evidence of this when their words about the rapture don’t come to pass, discrediting the Name of the Lord. While maybe not intentional, it is taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Thank God for His mercy and patience with us!
Many such future telling went on leading up to the year 2000. But it had gone on for centuries beforehand. Unfortunately, now, with the internet, these whacky ideas are spread globally as if from God Himself. In particular the speakers frequently look to the year 1948 when modern Israel became an independent state. They then take passages such as Matthew 24 and apply them to their day. In the past they have added a “generation” and come up with 1988, declaring the Lord would return by then.
When these predictions failed, the date was moved, the “generation” stretched and eventually joined all the heightened speculation of some kind of millennium catastrophe for 2000. There have been countless predictions made about the end of the world. Not all those false prophecies were from cult leaders, either. Some very good folk have led the people away from truth with a mix of good teaching and statements of impending doom or glory. And while we may gain from their other good Bible teaching, we must beware of the colouring of false teaching of dispensationalism, indeed all “millennialism” that changes the good news of Jesus Christ.
Beyond the false date predictions, we see the pervasive lies that come repeatedly throughout the Bible teaching of dispensationalism in particular. It creates fear while speaking about love. In a similar way to Jehovah’s Witness theology, it preys upon worldly uncertainty to gain numbers. That’s not how the gospel works. It is the goodness and kindness of God that leads to repentance.
With each major natural event or political upheaval people still point to Jesus’ return to earth with a physical rule eventuating. But it never does. Over the last 2000 odd years these predictions have followed a similar pattern. Clouds without rain.
It won’t happen. It doesn’t because, like some of the Hebrews of Jesus’ Day, these folk are looking to, for the most part, the natural world. They are not fully aware of the greater spiritual reality. That is, the new heaven of Ephesians 2:6, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Revelation 21:1-7. This new heaven, replacing the geo-limited Holy of Holies in Jerusalem was continually predicted by the Old Testament prophets, e.g, Isaiah 43:18-21. And so, many of those who await a “simultaneous rapture” are not availing themselves of the great spiritual reality of Christ within humanity – ruling now, ever present, always victorious.[1]
That is where the goodness and kindness of God is manifest in the earth.
Yet so few have lived out of this inherited heaven. So few, in fact, that following revivals, the people often degenerate back into a politico-religious institutionalism.
Healing comes when we are fully aware of our place in Christ. We live and work in His total and absolute love which is merciful to ourselves and others.
It’s all about restored relationship won in Christ. That’s why St Paul tells baby Christians, the Corinthians that we are no longer to think about people in a natural way, including ourselves. We no longer call ourselves “sinners” because we are a “new creation” in Christ. In Romans, Paul is also addressing an area of the old nature (carnality) when he says,
“And do not be conformed to this (natural) world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Paul is explaining Jesus’ daily “taking up of the cross to follow Christ”. But what does this mean? It is quite simply having a mindset that our old nature is gone, crucified in Christ. So that now we live out of His power. He’s the King. He’s the God in this temple, our body/ bodies.
We agree with Him that, “there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” No guilt at all. When we do this, we acknowledge that we have passed from death to life. Sin is not our final enemy. Death is. And it has been done away with. It was the final enemy or wage to pay. When our “outer temple” or mortal body lies down and expires, the real spirit within the believer will rise to be with the Lord.
From a natural perspective this is seen as “dying”. But the Bible tells us a greater reality. The old nature was already dead. Then, when we have finished our race, our old body, even though it was often healed and renewed too, has finished housing our new nature. But the believer’s spirit has been made alive, thanks be to God in Christ who has given us His abundant life, so the believer’s spirit continues on past the grave or crematorium.
For the believer, physical death is seamless transition. We’re already in the heavenly realm. But on that day, they’ll shed the mortal and put on mortality. It is a general second resurrection (they got the first when they first stepped into the new birth /creation). But they have never tasted death since.
[1] There is a difference between the false concept of a simultaneous rapture in “this age” and the biblical truth of a “general” rising from the earth to meet the Lord and others in that other “realm”. We recall that Daniel had a forward vision of the judgment thrones being put in place. He was seeing into the spiritual real depicting the judgment / destruction of ancient false Jerusalem in 70AD. All who died then and beforehand received their justice. Thereafter, what they called “the age to come” would be capable of living out of the new heaven and then ascend to be with the Lord when their mortal flesh would cease. They would not precede those who had been subject to “soul sleep” in Sheol / Hades.
