In this episode of A Reasonable Response, Robert Bosley tackles the often-polarizing topic of dispensationalism. After a few lighthearted reactions to some of the more extreme online voices, Bosley shifts into “The Breakdown” to address core dispensational claims—especially those concerning Israel, prophecy, and God’s promises.

He challenges popular interpretations, examines the biblical foundation for covenant theology, and encourages listeners to test every teaching against Scripture. This is an episode for anyone seeking clarity on where dispensationalism and covenant theology diverge—and why it matters for understanding God’s redemptive plan.

I believe I can fly. I believe I can trust in God. Oh man, I don't think that's what Paul meant. Welcome to A Reasonable Response. I'm Robert Bosley, and the purpose of this podcast is to give a reasoned response to issues related to the Christian faith from a Reformed Baptist perspective.

Each episode contains what we call the breakdown, where I respond to a particular video related to whatever the topic is at hand. Today, that topic is the issue of dispensationalism. Before we get to the breakdown, my producer Cameron has lined up some more videos for me to react to of some of the wilder dispensationalists online. Quick disclaimer, obviously not every dispensationalist is going to be like the people in these videos, so we're not necessarily wanting to lump them all together and say that every one of them who identifies as a dispensationalist believes or behaves in the same way. Ladies and gentlemen, if we as the United States of America want God's continued blessing on our country, we better get on the right side of Israel because that is to be on the right side of God himself.

That's what the Holy Scripture teaches. It's so tiresome. No, if you want to be on the right side of God, you need to repent and trust in Jesus. Your relationship to a modern geopolitical state in the Middle East has nothing to do with it. Seventy weeks are decreed for your people.

Hold up, Daniel. Let's save that last week for two thousand years later. Exactly. Exactly. And so we're looking for it.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We have been for some time. Ages.

So anything that you could do to help would be Very helpful. Look, can you tell us why... Good luck finding that. It's not there. John says he's a fellow partaker in the Tribulation of the Saints.

It's it's just how it is The sound yeah, yeah That's that's good. Okay now that we've had a little bit of fun, it's time to be a little bit more serious and move into the breakdown. Today we're going to look at a video from the YouTube channel of Dr. Michael Vlach titled What is Dispensationalism? In this first clip, we're especially going to be focusing on the underlying hermeneutic issue.

As much as I try to be brief and concise, this is going to be a little bit of a longer clip because this is such a foundational issue and really is at the core of our disagreement with dispensationalism. So, let's dive in. Dispensationalism believes that we should use a consistent literal hermeneutic to all passages of scripture. That also involves a grammatical historical hermeneutic where we're taking into account the grammar and the history and the culture and the genre and all these things that contribute to understanding what the divinely inspired authors of scripture meant by what they wrote. That even includes the Old Testament.

So dispensationalists believe that all passages of scripture are inspired by God and they all make their contributions to the Bible storyline. And that even includes the Old Testament. And that even includes Old Testament prophetic sections. So dispensationalists, they don't look at the Old Testament and say, well, all of that is going to get transcended or transformed or spiritualized or typologized when you get to the New Testament. Obviously, I don't have a problem with a grammatical historical hermeneutic.

We obviously need to take grammar and history into consideration when we interpret the Bible. And this is in contrast to what are often called the higher critical methods of interpretation that really reject the reliability of Scripture. So I agree with him there. We have to be grammatical, historical interpreters of Scripture. The literal is the sticky part.

I would say literal is a fine word to choose as long as we understand that it permits the normal non-literal use of language. Hyperbole, exaggeration, figures of speech, metaphors, so on and so forth. But when dispensationalists like Dr. Vlock use the term literal hermeneutic, they mean something more than this. He means a literal fulfillment in that every passage of Scripture, including prophecies in the Old Testament, must be fulfilled to the letter of how they would have been understood in the time that they were given.

In other words, other passages of Scripture, including the New Testament, have no bearing on how to interpret these prophecies in their context. I think we need to stick with the hermeneutic that was really summarized by Augustine, that the new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed. In other words, we ought to have a New Testament priority in our hermeneutics when we want to interpret the Scriptures accurately. And this New Testament priority is not merely invented out of thin air. I believe this is the hermeneutic given to us by the apostles themselves.

Consider, for example, how the apostles handle the Old Testament scriptures. In Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem, James quotes the Book of Amos regarding rebuilding the fallen tent of David and God's work of reestablishing Israel, and he applies it to the conversion of the Gentiles and the expansion of the New Testament Church, as well as Galatians 3.16 and its interpretation of Genesis 17.7, where the Apostle Paul tells us that the covenant promises are fulfilled not in multiple seeds, but in the singular seed that is Christ. And so ultimately, the passage priority of dispensational hermeneutics results in a minimization of the New Testament, and it is a functional denial in many cases of progressive revelation. Instead, the hermeneutic given to us by the apostles is one of New Testament priority. The New covenant fulfills the old and expands on it in great and glorious ways.

The dispensationalists believe that the Old Testament expectations concerning Israel and Gentiles and everything else, spiritual and physical blessings, those have to be fulfilled literally either at the first coming of Christ or in connection with the second coming. So we could say that dispensationalism on when it comes to Old Testament expectation and New Testament fulfillment, there's a continuity of expectation of literal fulfillment. This seems pretty unique to me. Typically, dispensationalists are both accused of, as well as affirming themselves, that their system has greater discontinuity between the testaments than other systems of interpretation. Vlach defends his claim of greater continuity because of his rigid literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecy and its fulfillment in what he would say is the New Covenant Age or the Church Age.

But at the same time, he's teaching that the New Testament Church and the Old Testament Israel are two distinct peoples with two distinct purposes and even two distinct laws by which they render obedience to God. Yes, there's continuity even in his system on how sinners are saved. It's only through faith, but it's really a stretch to see how anyone can seriously say that there is great continuity in a system that emphasizes such a radical distinction between the people of God under the Old Covenant and under the New. Now we want to come to the issue of primary theological beliefs of dispensationalism. And so here we're going to talk about seven key beliefs.

And I do want to be clear here that when we talk about these primary theological beliefs of dispensationalism, we're not saying that only dispensationalists hold these, but these are very important to the dispensational understanding of the Bible's storyline from Genesis through Revelation. I'm glad to see that he clarifies that there is overlap here among dispensational and non-dispensational theologians and systems of interpretation. Some of these beliefs that he goes through will be unique to dispensationalism. Some are not, there is overlap. And this is helpful because some people can get confused and think that if you affirm anything that one side believes, you're automatically on that side entirely.

And that's just not the case. In reality, the particular theological beliefs don't necessarily determine what side you're on. It's, as we've seen, the hermeneutic that is underlying the system, that is really our point of difference. And we need to keep that hermeneutic in mind as we look at these theological beliefs and see how that affects them even when there is areas of overlap with other systems of interpretation. Dispensationalism believes in the literal fulfillment of all aspects of what we could call the covenants of promise, the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the new.

These are eternal, unconditional covenants. They can be conditional elements within them, but they're covenants that God takes upon himself to fulfill. What we see here again is that in the New Testament, what much of the dispensationalist expects to be fulfilled literally is actually expanded beyond the scope of what the original hearers would have heard or understood. Abraham's descendants inherit the world because Jesus, the true seed of Abraham, inherits the world. It seems like that would be a drastic downgrade and a disappointment to now, under the new covenant, say that the Abrahamic covenant will only be fulfilled by the Jews occupying the land of Canaan.

But as he pointed out, there is overlap. I agree that there is a literal fulfillment of many of these things. Peace among the nations, physical blessings, the restoration of creation and harmony. However, it seems clear that all of these blessings are gonna be accomplished through the preaching of the gospel and through the spreading of the church and its influence in the world in this age, rather than in a restoration of Israel and a temple in a yet future millennial kingdom. And then secondly, dispensationalism believes in the continuing significance of ethnic national Israel.

In other words, you know, the corporate entity, the ethnic national territorial entity of Israel that was significant in the Old Testament remains significant even though Israel is an unbelief and will be significant in the future. Believing that ethnic Israel remains significant in the plan and purposes of God is not a uniquely dispensational view. Jonathan Edwards, for instance, a post-millennial covenant theologian, believed that the conversion of the ethnic Jews en masse would begin the golden age millennium in the future. We can say that God hasn't utterly cast off this particular ethnic people group known as the Jews, while also affirming that God's purposes in His covenant aren't restricted to them or even centered on them. Now when it comes to the question of how to understand Romans 11, there is a variety of interpretations provided by covenant theologians, some seeing the all Israel there as being a conversion of ethnic Jews as Jotha and Edwards, or those who see it as a figure of speech to refer to the salvation of all the elect.

Regardless of how one interprets that particular passage, the main question at hand is how does ethnic Israel relate to the New Testament church, which Dr. Vlock does examine more clearly in the next two beliefs he covers. Another key belief of dispensationalism is that the church is a New Testament entity. There's always been a people of God. I mean, you can go very deep back into Genesis and the Old Testament.

There's always been people who've believed, you know, have expressed faith in the God of the Bible and have been saved. But there's something unique about the arrival of Jesus the Messiah. Now, again, we believe he is eternal, eternal God, but his arrival as the Son of David, as the Messiah, as the servant, the arrival of Jesus the Messiah, and the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit that He brings as poured out in Acts chapter 2, that those ingredients there of the Church, the arrival of the Messiah and the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit that the Messiah brings, that's really what makes the Church the Church. I'm glad that he affirms that there has been one people of God throughout all of history. What I don't understand is the hesitancy to call this one people of God the Church.

Of course, the Incarnation and the ministry of Jesus, His death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, all these things happened at a particular point in time and they did change the character and the nature, in a sense, of the people of God. But it's not wrong to call that one people of God the church. The word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia, and it means simply assembly or congregation. The ekklesia is a gathering of people, a particular people, for a unified purpose. That's what the word ekklesia means.

In the Old Testament, the people of God, Israel, was often called the assembly or the congregation. The Hebrew word, Chahal, that was translated in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, often with the word Ecclesia, church, under both covenants. The gathered people of God are called a church, an assembly, a congregation, regardless of which covenant that people of God is operating under. Dispensationalism believes that there is a distinction between Israel and the church, that they may be closely connected historically and there's going to be some similarities. There's going to be language, people of God language used of Israel in the Old Testament that will be used of the church.

But Israel is an ethnic, national, corporate, territorial entity. And the church is saved Jews and Gentiles in the Messiah in this age that experienced the new covenant ministry of the Holy spirit, but the Bible still teaches a future for ethnic, national Israel. So therefore, as the church arrives, there's still the belief that Israel as a national entity still is significant. So you can't just say the church is the New Israel because the Bible doesn't teach that. Now, Dr.

Vlach admits that there is an application of Old Testament language to the New Testament church in the New Testament scriptures, but he still wants to maintain the sharp distinction between Israel and the Church that is characteristic of Dispensationalism. But the fact is the New Testament goes out of its way to show that the New Testament Church is the culmination and fulfillment of Old Testament Israel. That Old Testament Israel was a picture of a greater reality that we find in the international New Testament New Covenant Church. I know he rejects the use of typology and fulfillment language here, but we can't avoid this conclusion if we allow the New Testament to have that priority we talked about earlier in the discussion on hermeneutics. Consider these passages of Scripture on how the New Testament Apostles describe the Church.

Romans 2, For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter. Or Philippians 3, for we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Jesus Christ, and have no confidence in the flesh. Or Ephesians 2, He Himself, that is Jesus, is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. And therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God Jews and Gentiles brought in to one people Or Galatians 6 16 circumcision means nothing but a new creation.

And these, he says, are the Israel of God. First Peter 2, 9 and 10. You, speaking to Christians, Peter says, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, once you were not a people, but you are now the people of God." The very language of the New Testament forces us to the conclusion that this idea of a sharp distinction between Israel and the church simply isn't the case. The New Testament Church is the fulfillment of the picture of the Old Testament Israel. Then number five, dispensationalism affirms futurism.

I don't know if you've heard this or not, but futurism would be the belief that there are major passages of scripture that have not been fulfilled yet in history, but they will be in the future, particularly Daniel's 70th week as discussed in Daniel 9, 27. There's major parts of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and 25 and Luke 21 and even Mark 13 that still need to be fulfilled. When it comes to Revelation, chapter 6, with the unfolding of the seals, the trumpets, and the bowl judgments which lead to the second coming of Christ. Dispensationalist are futurist in the sense that they believe these passages in events still await future fulfillment. And that would differ with preterist who would see many of these things as fulfilled in the first century AD, or historicists who see these sorts of passages being fulfilled continually throughout the history of this age, or idealists who would say, You know, these passages aren't really about timing of fulfillment.

They're more of general principles like God wins and we need to be faithful. Again, he's right that futurism is an essential part of dispensationalism. But at the same time, you can be a covenant theologian and still be a futurist, believing that there are many future prophecies to be fulfilled literally, in a sense, though most covenant theologians would be some form of preterist or idealist. Looking at these three prophecies that he's listed here, we can see the problem with the dispensational hermeneutic. In Daniel 9, we have the Daniel 70-week prophecy, and the passage priority of dispensationalism disappears when they interpret this passage.

Daniel is given a very specific timeline, and what good is a timeline if suddenly you have an additional block of time, never mentioned, that's significantly larger than the timeline itself inserted into the middle of the timeline? It's basically useless at that point. There's nothing in the text that indicates that that's the case. In the Olivet Discourse, in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, Jesus prophesized the destruction of the temple, and he specifically says that these prophecies will occur during this generation. Grammatically, I don't see any way that we can understand that other than Jesus speaking to the generation that he was actually with at that time.

He said these prophecies will be fulfilled in this generation. So again, I know I've said it already, but this is why that hermeneutical question is so key to this whole discussion. Because depending on what your hermeneutic is, That's going to determine how you interpret all these things and ultimately what side of this debate you're going to fall on. Sixth, another key belief of dispensationalism is pre-millennialism, which believes that we are not in the millennium today and that you need the second coming of Jesus to earth to bring the millennium, which is an earthly kingdom of a thousand years or around a thousand years. So, premillennialism views Jesus's millennial messianic kingdom as future.

Now, I want to be clear here, just because, you know, not everybody who believes in premillennialism is a dispensationalist, but all dispensationalists believe in premillennialism. Now the purpose of this video is not necessarily to get into an eschatology debate, but he's right that dispensationalism does necessarily entail a form of premillennialism. Most dispensationalists today are pre-tribulation, rapture premillennialists, though there are some that take different views on the timing of the rapture. That's also a necessary component of dispensational eschatology, is the rapture, because that's a necessary conclusion of their distinction of Israel and the Church. The Church must be removed before God can resume His program with the ethnic Israelites.

But what is the issue with that? The problem that we see is that throughout the New Testament, we are not given any indication that the Kingdom of God is still off in the future. Jesus in his earthly ministry said the Kingdom of God is near. He even said the Kingdom of God is among you. The apostles went out preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.

We read in Acts that they were persecuted because they were preaching that there is another King, Jesus. And so the message of the New Testament is not one of a yet future King and Kingdom, but that the Kingdom of Jesus has already come and been established in the world now, and we are calling all people to bend the knee to King Jesus today. And then seventh, another belief of dispensationalism is the significance of geopolitical nations, and that even includes the future. So I think for oftentimes for church history, you know, there's, there's these passages in the Bible and oftentimes in the Isaiah passages, Isaiah two, Isaiah 11, others were talks about nations, Isaiah 19 brings up Egypt and Syria. You know, the nations are promised that they're going to have some blessings in the kingdom too, but oftentimes those have been spiritualized.

He's right that there is a blessing being brought to all the nations in the world, but how is that blessing being brought? It's not something to see just in the far future under some millennial kingdom with a reestablished Israel, but it is the blessing of the gospel. It's the mission of the church going to these nations and proclaiming the lordship of Christ even today. We're not waiting for this future kingdom to be established and then bless all the world. We're seeing it happen today as the gospel is preached and sinners are converted.

That is the blessing on all the nations that are being brought in to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. In conclusion, while I respect Dr. Vlock and appreciate him and men like him and their ministries, we do have very real disagreements and real concerns with dispensationalism. This perspective can cause Christians to misread their Bibles and to have a skewed perspective on how they should consider the modern nation-state of Israel, the relationship of Christians to the state and to the rest of the world. And so if we really believe in the sufficiency of scripture, we will allow the scriptures to interpret itself.

And when we do so, we'll see that the hermeneutical presuppositions of dispensationalism are not the hermeneutics of the Apostles. It's not what we see in the New Testament, and therefore it must be rejected. That's all the time we have today. If you would like to connect with me personally, I'm on X at R. Bosley 1689.

And If you would like more information about church and family life, you can go to churchandfamilylife.com. Thank you. See you next time.