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"A VOID PLACE"

DISPENSATIONALISM, BAPTISM AND INTERDENOMINATIONALISM

"And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah sat either of them on his

throne, clothed in their robes, and they sat in a void place at the entering in of the

gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them."

II Chronicles 18: 9

t's a curious fact that Baptists - who glory so greatly in a heritage distinct from Protestantism - have

not only thoroughly imbibed, but have, broadly speaking, become staunch defenders of a

Protestant hermeneutic. By this, of course, we refer to Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism must

be defined as an originally Protestant system, because it is a simple fact that the first inventors and

propegators of Dispensationalism were themselves not Baptists, but Protestants.

This is certainly true of Darby. Darby of course described himself as a man having strong Roman

Catholic sympathies, even while he served as a curate in the Anglican Church, a man who "held apostolic

succession fully, and the channels of grace to be there [the Roman Catholic Church] only.i

In other

words, even as a Protestant, he accepted the Roman Catholic view that outside of the pale of her

religion, there is no grace, no salvation available. Even his Protestantism stood in doubt, as he gazed

longingly at the Harlot of Babylon, the Roman Catholic Church. It is highly noteworthy that though he

eventually united with the Plymouth Brethren, he "did not adopt the practice of believer's baptism as

was by then the practice in Bristol," but instead "discouraged some young preachers from speaking on

the subject, and to this day many of his followers (Exclusive Brethren) practice a modified form of infant

baptism."ii

Scofield on the other hand was a Congregationalist. It goes therefore without saying that he was a

pedobaptist. He practiced infant baptism, and his Dispensationalist hermeneutic never gave him anygood reason not to.

All of this has real significance when we put it in its historical context. We are of course discussing

matters that relate to the earliest days of Fundamentalism, that period of history when Fundamentalism

existed in its most infantile form. Those were the days when church unity was the big emphases, and

I

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Separatism was being downplayed as divisive, and hurtful to the overall cause of Christ. Those were the

days of the Gospel Union Meetings, when Presbyterians like Billy Sunday and Baptists like J. Frank Norris

had no great problems holding cooperative meetings together in the name of evangelism. So it was

important that a hermeneutic be adopted that could unite, rather than divide.

And this of course was the great problem that Covenant Theology presented to interdenominational

Fundamentalism. Protestant Covenant Theology, by treating the Abrahamic Covenant as essentially

identical to the New Covenant, ultimately led to the practice of infant baptism. Baptist Covenant

Theology on the other hand, which made a sharp distinction between the Abrahamic Covenant and the

New Covenant, and, indeed, between the Abrahamic Covenant itself, and the promises contained within

the Abrahamic Covenant, created a theological framework that could onlyresult in the credobaptist

insistence on baptism as being exclusively for believers. And these two understandings of Covenant

Theology had never been reconciled. They had always resulted in conflict, and, in certain rare cases,

such as that of Obadiah Holmes, in outright persecution. In other words, the debate over Covenant

Theology presented a major obstacle to the effort to unite conservative Christians around a minimalist

body of Fundamental doctrines.

And this is where Dispensationalism held such appeal. On the surface, by accentuating a strong

distinction between the Abrahamic Covenant and the position of the New Testament Church, it seemed

to echo the historic Baptist position. But by realigning the New Covenant to an exclusively Futurist

position, Dispensationalism succeeded in creating a neutral ground, a theological void place that

sidestepped the issue completely. It's instructive to note that the Dispensationalist view of the

Covenants has no real implications for the Church today in terms of baptism and who baptism should beapplied to. In stark contrast to Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism offered theological neutrality, a

void place, where Baptists and Protestants could unite together under a single banner.

This is accomplished by omitting the Church from any unique Covenant relationship with God

whatsoever. Even a cursory review of Clarence Larkin's chapter on the Covenants in hisDispensational

Truth reveals that the Church is excludedfrom every single Covenant in the Word of God, except for the

Adamic Covenant and the Noahic Covenant, which encompass all of humanity. According to

Dispensationalism, the first seven Covenants - except the universal Adamic and Noahic Covenants - are

historic, having no unique promises for the Church, and most of them being "exclusively for the Nation

of Israel". In contrast, the last Covenant, the Covenant of Christ's blood, the New Covenant is strictly

future, and is not yet in effect at this time, nor will it go into effect until after the Church has been

raptured out of this world. Only when Christ has returned to establish his Millennial Kingdom will the

New Covenant go into effect, and even then, it will applyonly to the ethnic house of Israel. As Larkin put

it, "It has nothing to do with the Church and does not belong to this Dispensation".iii

In other words,

Dispensationalism is a theology in which the Church has no unique Covenant relationship with God, and

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indeed, is virtually excluded from every single Covenant in the Word of God except the Adamic Covenant

and the Noahic Covenant, which even lost people are in!iv

It is by this subtle and devious method of excluding the Church from any unique Covenant relationship

with God that Dispensationalism avoids the ultimate question resulting from Covenant Theology: Who is

the proper recipient of baptism? In this void place, the absence of any unique Covenant relationship with

God, the Dispensationalist may ignore completelythe implications of the sign of circumcision and

dismiss it as entirely irrelevant to a Church without a Covenant. And since, in this scheme of things,

baptism has no covenantal significance whatsoever to the Church, it loses any real meaning beyond that

of the barest symbolic token ofpersonalobedience, going no further than to implypersonalfaith in a

prophetic resurrection in a mere pantomime, being utterly stripped of its fullernature as the outward

expression of confirmation ofa binding pactbetween God and man, which pact God has solemnly

obligated and engaged himself to fulfill, and which is accepted and entered into by faith on man's part.

From this Dispensationalist perspective, baptism becomes drastically less significantin its meaning and

implications than it was historically understood to be by our Baptist forefathers, and can be minimized

as a doctrine of lesser consequence for the supposedly greater purpose of Christian unity.

Perhaps some off you reading this still doubt that Dispensationalism ultimately lies at the heart of

interdenominationalism. My challenge to you is this: go back and study the lives and doctrine of Darby

and Scofield, as well as the historic context of their rise to prominence and influence. Then consider the

wholesale abandonment of denominational identification and the epidemic rise of interdenominational

and nondenominational community churches that we face today. Ask yourself this: Is it less of a

problem today than it was before the rise of Dispensationalism, before the publication of the ScofieldReference Bible and before the establishment of Dallas Theological Seminary? I think that an honest

consideration of these questions will confirm the truth: Dispensationalism is the root of the modern

interdenominational movement. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The facts speak for

themselves. Dispensationalism is a nondenominational hermenuetic.

ihttp://www.johndarby.org/beginning/index.html(accessed 23 June 2013).

iihttp://www.victorianweb.org/religion/plymouth.html(accessed 23 June 2013).

iii

http://www.raptureforums.com/ClarenceLarkin/chap26.cfm(accessed 23 June 2013).ivGenesis 9: 9 - 16 KJV.

http://www.johndarby.org/beginning/index.htmlhttp://www.johndarby.org/beginning/index.htmlhttp://www.johndarby.org/beginning/index.htmlhttp://www.victorianweb.org/religion/plymouth.htmlhttp://www.victorianweb.org/religion/plymouth.htmlhttp://www.victorianweb.org/religion/plymouth.htmlhttp://www.victorianweb.org/religion/plymouth.htmlhttp://www.raptureforums.com/ClarenceLarkin/chap26.cfmhttp://www.raptureforums.com/ClarenceLarkin/chap26.cfmhttp://www.raptureforums.com/ClarenceLarkin/chap26.cfmhttp://www.raptureforums.com/ClarenceLarkin/chap26.cfmhttp://www.victorianweb.org/religion/plymouth.htmlhttp://www.johndarby.org/beginning/index.html