Dispensation Premillennialism: Fact or Fiction?

[Josheb]

Does that have any biblical precedent? If one interprets the Bible by dividing it into specific ways in which God deals with and tests humanity, one could certainly find scriptures to support that view. Though imo, they would need to be isolated from the consistency of the whole of Scripture. So the question is, is that what the Bible, as a whole, is, and is doing? Is that what determines interpretation?

No, it is not what the text of the Bible teaches.

1. When Dispensational Premillennialists try to justify Darby's teachings by appealing to Christians who lived before Darby they deceptively use a slight of hand in which people who wrote about dispensations and people who wrote about premillennial viewpoints are used as evidence proving Dispensational Premillennialism has a history that precedes Darby. This is utter falsehood. The slight of hand occurs because a dispensation and a premillennial viewpoint are not Dispensational Premillennialism. The early premillennialists were Historicist, not Dispensationalist. Rarely do they mention that fact when quoting a Historicist. It is a lie of omission whenever that happens. It is a fiction. When earlier Christians wrote about dispensations they invariably did so in the context of the covenants, not exclusive of the covenants. They did not separate dispensations from covenants and Dispensational Premillennialism does. Therefore, again, whenever a Dispensational Premillennial source uses an earlier Christian source to say, "See, look, Dispensational Premillennialism was part of Christian thought long before Darby," they are misrepresenting the truth. It is a fiction. The word, "dispensation" can be found in Christian thought and doctrine going all the way back to the ECFs. The Dispensational Premillennialist use of the term cannot be found prior to Darby. The same is true of premillennialism. Historical is not synonymous with, nor identical to Dispensational Premillennialism. Treating the two as if they are the same is a falsehood. Teaching the word "dispensation" has previously been used the way Dispensational Premillennialism uses the word is another falsehood. These are two of the fictions of Dispensational Premillennialism and they go right to the foundation of the theology. If the theology's foundation is false, then so too is everything built on that foundation.
2. The fact of scripture is that scripture never uses the word "dispensation" to define itself and on the occasion the word is used, the scriptures do not use the term the way Dispensational Premillennialism defines the word. The Dispensational Premillennialist will appeal to the fact the Bible never uses the word "Trinity," either but that is an unequal comparison because the word "trinity," and the doctrine of the Trinity is bult from explicit statements anyone can objectively find in scripture. That is not the case with the word, "dispensation." All such attempts are false equivalences. That is another fiction of Dispensational Premillennialism.
3. Not only does the Bible never use the word "dispensation" to divide itself, or mark different aspects of its revelation, but the Bible never parses itself using the concept as the Dispensational Premillennialism defines the term. The definition is a man-made invention that is not a term scripture itself uses, and the definition of the concept is not one the scriptures ever explicitly assert, either. This is another fiction of Dispensational Premillennialism.
4. Historically speaking, orthodox Christianity has always asserted a continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The reason Christianity has taught continuity is because that is what the Bible teaches. We find repeated, constant use of the Old Testament in the teaching and practice of the early Church, especially in the epistolary. The Old Testament is repeatedly applied to the converts to Christ, both Jewish and Gentile. Dispensational Premillennialism rejects these facts - both the facts of scripture and the facts of Christian orthodoxy. On some occasions the rejection is completely incompatible with what scripture teaches and what Christian orthodoxy teaches. The two cannot co-exist. Dispensational Premillennialism teaches Dispensational Premillennialism is true, not scripture and not historical orthodoxy. This is another fiction of Dispensational Premillennialism.
5. Dispensational Premillennialism teaches a two-kingdoms, two-peoples, two separated purposes ecclesiology. It does this in spite of the fact the Bible always speaks of "God's people," as a single entity, not two different peoples (plural). This is another example of continuity between Old and New that is rejected by Dispensational Premillennialism, a continuity in which Dispensational Premillennialism teaches Dispensational Premillennialism is correct and scripture and historical, orthodox Christian teaching is incorrect. This is an invention of Dispensational Premillennialism. It is fiction.
6. Dispensational Premillennialism elevates ecclesiology and eschatology. In the process of doing so, the historically preeminent doctrines of Christology and soteriology are lowered in position, and the context of the entire Bible is changed. The Bible is first and foremost always about Christ and from the first mention of the tree of life in Genesis all the way through the existence of that tree in the new city of peace, soteriology is preeminent. The ecclesiology and the eschatology of Dispensational Premillennialism, not just their elevated position in theology, are completely different than that of scripture and that which historical orthodox Christianity has taught for two thousand years.
7. Not a single Dispensational Premillennialist has ever made a correct prediction in the two hundred years since the inception of Dispensational Premillennialism. Every prediction, every vague prognostication proves wrong. When sufficient time passes proving the prognostications wrong, nothing is done. Dispensational Premillennialism is a theology that asserts false predictions, teaches its adherents to make false predictions, teaches its adherents to ignore false predictions and never hold accountable false teachers who make false predictions. Every single Dispensational Premillennialist teacher has died, drawing his last breath, without a single prediction s/he's ever made coming true. Dispensationalism Premillennialism is fiction. It teaches fiction. It teaches the practice of fiction and a lack of responsibility, accountability, and culpability thereof.

I'm stopping here because that's a lot for Dispensationalists to defend (or try to disprove). It's not all. There is a lot more fiction in Dispensational Premillennialism but this should be sufficient for even the most ardently devoted DPer to realize there are very real and significant problems in that theology. Dispensational Premillennialism is fiction.