Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," June Edition 2008
Why Dispensationalism Is Wrong
1. It is based on a false interpretation of Daniel’s prophecy of the Seventy Weeks.
2. It denies the present messianic reign of Christ, teaching instead that the promised kingdom is now postponed. Such (assumed) postponed earthly Jewish kingdom Jesus presumably sets up when He returns.
3. It fails to understand the spiritual nature of Christ’s one kingdom--projecting a philosophical dualism pitting heavenly and earthly aspects against each other in typical Gnostic fashion.
4. It denies the coming of Christ for the general resurrection of the dead and the universal judgment of all mankind--important doctrinal facts that are clearly taught in the New Testament.
5. Nineteenth century architects of it were staunch opponents of the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection--it fits in quite handily with limited atonement, predestinarian theology and sinning religion.
6. It erroneously teaches that unbelieving racial Jews are now God’s chosen people, contrary to the plain teaching of the New Testament.
7. It fails to see the conditional aspect of God’s “land” promise to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
8. It offers no vision for the triumph of the Christian world mission in this present age. Not taking into account the Arminian emphasis on free moral agency and universal atonement, it fosters a fatalistic mentality that looks for real moral and social redemption of earth’s masses only beyond present history.
9. It fails to understand that the Book of Revelation is a book of symbols, thus truncating the message of this book by its commitment to a woodenly literalistic hermeneutic that leads only into conflict and confusion.
10. It gives its devotees a sense of false security concerning their (imagined) superior light--leading the carnal among them into spiritual presumption, and ultimately, a loss of Christian faith.
11. The speculative aspects of its teaching (e.g., pretribulational rapturism) fosters divisiveness within the Church.
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