Waldron on Spurgeon, Eschatology, and the Nature of Millennium
In Dr. Waldron’s most recent blog entries he makes a point that the two main proponents of Historic Premillennialism, Justin Martyr in the Patristic Era and George Eldon Ladd in the modern era had no place for a national restoration of Israel during the millennium. He states that for both Israel was to be understood as “the church” or “Spiritual Israel.” In one sense this is true. Justin was the first to identify the church as the new or “spiritual Israel” (Dialogue with Trypho ANF 1:200). Ladd largely follows the same view. However, both affirm what is normative for the Historic Premillennial view, that there is a national and territorial future for Israel as well.
Justin, like most of the early Church Fathers borders on being anti-semitic, speaking of the Jews as “Christ killers” and other pejorative terminology. But even he states in relation to the last days when the Jews will repent and turn to Christ it will be in their own land:
And what the people of the Jews shall say and so, when they see Him coming in glory, has been thus predicted by Zechariah the prophet: “I will command the four winds to gather the scattered children; I will command the north wind to bring them, and the south wind that it keep not back. And then in Jerusalem there shall be great lamantation, not the lamantation of mouth or of lips but the lamentation of the heart; and they shall rend not their garments, but their hearts. Tribe by tribe they shall mourn, and they shall loook upon Him whom they have piercedl and they shall say, Why O Lord, hast thou made us to err from Thy way? The glory which our fathers blessed, has for us been turned into shame (First Apology, ANF 1:180).
In his writings Ladd is never definitive, but clearly does allow for the Israel in the land as possible if not likely. In his Theology of the New Testament, he states:
After telling of the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the people, Luke adds the words, “Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Lk. 21:24). Here Jesus clearly anticipates a time between the fall of Jerusalem and the parousia that he names “the time sof the Gentiles.” Furthermore, it is possible that this implies a future repossession of Jerusaelm by Israel when the “times of the Gentiles are ended (Ladd, Theology of the NT, 200-201).
Also he notes later in the same work:
Whatever the means of Israel’s eschatological salvation, it sppears to be an eschatological event in Paul’s thought. It is impossible that Israel should be saved in any way but faith in Jesus as her Messiah. Saul of Tarsus was brought to faith by a special visions of the glorified Christ; yet he was saved by faith like any believer and was brought into the church. Literal Israel, temporarily rejected, is yet to come to faith and be grafted back into the olive tree–the true people of God (Rom. 11:23). Piper has suggested that in God’s plan of redemptive history, converted Israel may become for the first time in history a truly Christian nation (p. 563, italics in the original. His entire discussion of Israel and salvation in relation to Rom 9-11, pp. 561-63).
In fact Ladd notes that the concept of the millennial kingdom in Revelation 20 is “rejected not on exegetical but theological grounds,” and also states, “there should be no objection to the idea of such a temporal kingdom in principle” (629).
It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Historic Premillennialism to believe that it excluded a future for national Israel both in terms of salvation or actually in the land. The Restoration Movement championed by the British Puritans (and affirmed by the American Puritans). The strong belief in the salvation of the Jews in the last days was closely tied together with Israel being one of the actual nations in the millennial kingdom. This belief was also apparently largely held by the divines of the Westminster Assembly. Robert Baillie (1599-1662) a delegate to the Assembly from Scotland, wrote, as recorded in his three volume Letters and Journals, that the larger part of the divines in the assembly were “chilaists” (premillennial). This is noteworthy also because Baillie was not premillennial and was opposed to that position.
The great prophetic conferences of the 19th Century in both America and Great Britain were, contrary to popular anti-dispenational opinion, were dominated by adherents to the Historic Premillennial postition. Participants cross denominational boundaries and represented Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist pastors and scholars. For example, E. Y. Mullins, who would be President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at the International Prophetic Conference at the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston (1901), stated:
May not the Jewish form [of the Book of Revelation] be due to the promise which He made to Abraham, and to emphasize that His purpose has not failed He maintains even the form and mould of the promise. God’s decrees will reach their consummation (Prophetic Conference, p. 27).
Of course Mullins is often the favorite target of some so-called Reformed Baptists who view him as the one who led the seminary and by extension the SBC into the apostasy it was on the verge of in the 1960’s. This is manifestly bad historiography and more agenda driven than an honest examination of his life and work.
The larger part of Historic Premillennialism has always held that there was not only going to be a general salvation of Jews in the millennial kingdom, but that the nation of Israel would once again enjoy a political and territorial reality in their land. Even Charles Hodge, while arguing against premillennialism and for postmillennialism, calls the future “national conversion” of the Jews a doctrine that is “according to the common faith of the Church” (Systematic Theology 3:805). He also states that the Scripture contains, “a promise of the restoration of the Jews as a nation.”
The position that Israel, Biblically and Theologically, has no warrant to expect a national restoration in the land of Palestine (or a mass national conversion), as advocated by Waldron, is an approach that is outside “the common faith of the church” as it has been expressed from the beginning.
Posted by Narnia3 at May 7, 2008 12:30 PM | TrackBack
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Waldron on Spurgeon’s Eschatology and the “Splintering” of Premillennialism
Dr. Sam Waldron, Dean and Professor of Systematic Theology, for the Midwest Center for Theological Studies has been blogging at the school’s site on Barry Horner’s recent publication, Future Israel (Broadman Academic Press, 2007).
In the last two entries Waldron has expanded his interaction to include a paper I wrote in 1999 entitled, Charles H. Spurgeon and the Nation of Israel: A Non-Dispensational Perspective on a Literal National Restoration. This was a paper I presented at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. This work was really an extension of my earlier work on Spurgeon’s view of the millennium looking at his millennial views from a slightly different angle. In this paper I attempt to demonstrate that Spurgeon was a premillennialist, who; while clearly not dispensational in his theology, none the less believed and taught that Israel as a national entity would be restored to their historic lands. In this position, Spurgeon was following in the line of the Puritan “Restoration Movement” which had begun in England in the 1600’s.
Waldron believes that Spurgeon’s view represents something of a “mediating position” between Dispensationalism and Amillennialism. But ultimately he states that, “Historically speaking, the eschatology of Spurgeon [including Bonar and J. C. Ryle] and company is a failed position, a failed eschatology.”
Waldon’s posts have too many points to deal with each one here, but there are a few observations that can be made here and perhaps more in subsequent posts over the next week. To start at the end and work backwards, Waldron makes the statement:
The long debate between Amillennialism and Dispensationalism has led also to the splintering of Dispensationalism. The current state of terminology used to distinguish the varying Dispensational positions is illustrative of this splintering. Leaving aside here the Bullingerites with their Hyper-Dispensationalism which denies that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are for today, you still have a number of varieties today of Dispensationalism. You have the Classic Dispensationalism of the Old Scofield Bible. There is the Modified Dispensationalism of the New Scofield and Ryrie. There is the yet more modified Dispensationalism of John MacArthur. Finally, there is the Progressive Dispensationalism of Blaising and Bock. A fierce debate rages within the Dispensational camp as to whether the second coming of Christ is pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, or pre-wrath. These different positions are the result of the aggressive onslaught of Amillenialism on Dispensationalism over the last century and a half.
Well, the “long debate” has not really been between “Amillennialism” and “Dispensationalism.” Amillennialism is simply a category of belief within the larger study of eschatology. The debate is more correctly between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology; those are the antithetical systems. To say that the “splintering” of Dispensationalism into the groups he mentions was caused by amillennialism or amillennial scholars is simply incorrect.
At The Master’s Seminary we have the complete set of transcripts of the discussions by the editorial committee that produced the New Scofield Reference Bible and nothing there would suggest any validity to Waldron’s claim in terms of the revisions to the Scofield. The movement from what has been called “Classic” Dispensationalism to the “Modified” honestly, upon examination had little to do with the eschatology of the system. There is no real change in the premillennial view from Scofield to Ryrie.
Progressive Dispensationalism was not born out of any battering from amillennialists either; it traces its roots to the “Dispensational Study Group” at the Evangelical Theological Society. That group was early on led by Darrell Bock and Craig Blaising; and to a lesser degree Robert Saucy. As an attendee of most of those early meetings, the main issue really was an attempt to interact with the works of George Eldon Ladd, F. F. Bruce (both premillennialists, and Bruce was actually Plymouth Brethren) and to a lesser degree, I. Howard Marshall. Here as well, there is no real difference in the eschatological distinctives from the earlier “forms” of Dispensationalism to the Progressive stance. This discussion was really about hermeneutics and Ryrie’s sina qua non position.
As far as MacArthur is concerned, his dispensational views are, in my opinion, more influenced by Alva Mclain’s Greatness of the Kingdom than perhaps L. S. Chafer, and thus is more consistently Calvinistic in his theology. I’m also not sure where MacArthur would be so distinct as to deserve his own category of Dispensationalism vis a vis, for instance, those of the Progressive group. In terms of his eschatological position, where, we would ask, is there any essential difference?
There was no “aggressive onslaught of Amillennialism” driving any of the distincive views within these positions.
Waldron also confuses the issue with the statement: “A fierce debate rages within the Dispensational camp as to whether the second coming of Christ is pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, or pre-wrath.” We will assume that the professor of systematic theology simply flubbed here mistaking the “Second Coming” which all Dispensationalists understand by definition to be premillennial; and the “rapture of the church,” on which there is a variety of opinion. There has hardly been “fierce debate” on this subject and since the initial splash of the Pre-Wrath position of the late Robert Van Kampen nearly two decades ago, there has been almost no real debate on the timing of the rapture; the positions, implications, and proofs for all of the options being fairly well settled. It should also be noted that while Dispensationalists have been traditionally “Pre-Trib” in their view on the timing of the Rapture; it really is not a foundational issue. I think the Pre-Trib position is clearly the best supported from an exegetical view and is the most logically consistent with the overall system; but Dispensationalism does not rise nor fall on one’s view of the rapture.
Frankly, Waldron’s posturing about the splintering of Dispensationalism is little more than idle rhetoric mixed together with some wishful thinking perhaps. Debates and discussions among those who hold a particular theological construct is more often than not a sign of health and vigor rather than signaling its soon demise. It is also not as if amillennialism itself is monolithic in its expression; there are variations and nuances that have developed since the time of Augustine. It is also interesting that for Waldron the “modification,” “emerging emphasis,” “more careful hermeneutic,” and recent works that have “brought out more satisfactorily,” the particular nuances of amillennialism he favors is presented in the most glowing of expressions; while any changes or new expressions within Dispensationalism is a sign of “splintering” or the responses to an “aggressive onslaught.”
Waldron also stated:
The splintering of Dispensationalism has also led to the attempt of Horner, Swanson, and others to revitalize the mediating position of Spurgeon and company. I doubt if this project can be successful. As I have said, it seems inherently self-contradictory to me. It must lead back to Dispensationalism (Horner) or onward to something else (Swanson?).
I’m actually just not sure what Waldron is thinking here. As already noted this paper is now nine years old and no where do I give any indication that I am trying to “revitalize” Spurgeon’s position. I don’t see Barry Horner trying to revitalize anything either. What I would point out is that amillennialism is not nor has been the exclusive eschatological option within Reformed (Baptist and otherwise) groups. Charles Spurgeon, the Bonar’s (Andrew and Horatius), J. C. Ryle, among many others, were formidible Biblical scholars and theologians and held to a premillennial view as well as one that held to a return of national Israel to their land. Added to this group as well would be those of the Plymouth Brethren who were premillennial, but not dispensational such as B. W. Newton, George Mueller, and the noted New Testament scholar Samuel Tregelles. Mueller and Newton were also friends with Spurgeon and stayed with him in Mentone France on several occasions.
Waldron also seems to be asking if I am going to somewhere in terms of my eschatological beliefs. The answer simply is no. I am a dispensationalist, probably more in keeping with the Progressive position and unreservedly affirm (as I do in writing each year) the doctrinal statement of The Master’s Seminary.
Lastly Waldron, was thankful that I (and Horner) had called attention to the “the peculiar eschatological views of Spurgeon and company.” He believes them to be peculiar because you have a non-dispensationalist affirming a future for Israel in their land. Well, even among Historic Premillennialists, this view is not all that peculiar and is probably the most common view; which careful research would soon demonstrate.
There will be more on this in the next week or so as time permits since seminary business will occupy much of our time as we conclude another academic year at The Master’s Seminary.
Posted by Narnia3 at May 2, 2008 6:44 PM | TrackBack
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