Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Spring Edition 1991
Heresies Of Dispensationalism
Two major theological heresies lie submerged in the teachings of modern popular dispensational premillennialism of which every Bible-believing Christian should beware.
The first is the projection of a so-called "church age" that is something other than Christ's messianic kingdom; the second is infatuation with a proliferation of disassociated future end-time judgment events that distract from the solemn biblical presentation of a unified and universal last great Judgment Day.
The New Testament knows nothing of a "church age" that is not indeed qualified as Christ's messianic kingdom. The "kingdom" of the messianic dispensation, furthermore, is nothing more or less than all inward and outward holiness of both heart and life. Scriptural holiness—entire sanctification by faith--as understood by historic Methodism, was both an accomplished messianic ideal, and the central idea of the new covenant, per se. Thus, the Wesleyan conception of the very nature of New Testament Christianity, itself, stands in logical antithesis to the non-messianic, antinomian projection of Christianity that is dispensationalism's parenthetical church age--an unscriptural, fictitious age, which, in all reality, is but an "age of antinomianism," in which believers sin in thought word and deed every day.
Jesus said the messianic age he came to inaugurate would end, not with a golden, political, millennial era of peace and prosperity on earth, but with a unified and universal "harvest" judgment (Matt. 13:36-43), whose just sentencing will be contingent solely on the appropriation, or non-appropriation, of those revelatory realities that have, in fact, qualified the period of mortal probation all along (Matt. 25:31:46).
Deflating John Wesley's expectation of a final "Great Assize" in which every man will be judged according to his works, Darbyism dissipates the awesome of the last great Judgment Day by its devious method of fragmenting the biblical, universal judgment scene into separate and distinct events that allow the believer's moral accountability to evaporate in the ideational spray.
Dispensationalism, generally, denies the universality of the Last Judgment. It says that believers are not among the judged of Rev. 20:11-15, nor does Matt. 25:31-46 have reference to that same event. John Nelson Darby started the now popular theory that Matt. 25:31-46 refers to a judgment of Gentile nations as a pre-condition for their entering the dispensationally-conceived Jewish millennium kingdom. On one occasion Dr. Daniel Steele confronted Darby face to face concerning his novel interpretation of the Matthew 25:31-46 text. Darby, Steele says, got very red-faced. He had no answer to the refutation of his error by that great Methodist theologian!
Contrary to what dispensationalism teaches, Christians, too, will be held morally accountable when the Bible judgment day comes. Are you living a "Bible-standards" Christian life in the light of the last great Judgment Day? Antinomian counterfeits for true holiness of heart and life will not pass muster there. Best to discover that now, and deal with it, dear friends, rather than to wake up shirted, and be cast into the lake of fire on that last great dreadful Judgment Day. Better to error for a short while on the one side, than to find out too late how diffferent the things of this life should have been.
Let this be your moment to begin now, more earnestly, "striving for the kingdom."
Related Article Links
A Very Sobering Scene From The Coming Day Of Judgment
Why Dispensationalism Is Wrong
Why Daniel Steele So Srongly Opposed Dispensationalism