The Problem with Dispensationalism - Part 1

If you’ll notice in Rev. 1:4, it is addressed to the seven churches in the province of Asia. Not synagogues, not temples but churches. The whole book is written to us and for us, the church, the Body of Christ. This brings us to the topic of Dispensationalism. This is the belief that Israel and the church are eternally separate and God will always deal with each group separately.
It is important when studying Bible Prophecy to begin with a correct understanding of God’s dealings with humanity. It is my opinion that dispensationalism, as it is commonly understood today, distorts the historical picture which leads some scholars to make false conclusions based on an inaccurate understanding of God’s plan. Now I am not saying that I have a better understanding than anyone else or that God has let me in on the secrets of the universe. I just look at things differently than dispensational pre-tribulation rapturists.
I was raised Pentecostal and learned and believed in those theories since childhood. However, I read a book called "The Pre-wrath Rapture of the Church", by Marv Rosenthal, that challenged what I was always taught. I did not instantly change my theology because of that book. I devoted myself to studying biblical eschatology for myself with no pre-conceived notions and asked myself, “What if dispensationalism was wrong? Does the bible really teach a pre-trib rapture?” I studied for several months the various end-times theologies and the results were life changing. I found that what I had always been taught as "truth" stood on very shaky ground.
Dispensationalists see God pursuing two goals throughout history. An earthly kingdom for the Jews and a heavenly kingdom for the church. Membership in Israel is by natural birth while one enters the Church by supernatural birth. They believe that in the O.T., God promised the Jews an earthly kingdom ruled by Messiah ben David and that when Christ came, He offered that prophesied kingdom to the Jews. When they rejected Him and His earthly kingdom, the promise was postponed and a "mystery form" of the kingdom was established, the "church". The church according to dispensational doctrine was unforeseen in the O.T. and constitutes an interruption but not a discontinuation of God’s plan for Israel. In the future, the separation between the "church" and the "Jews" will be re-established and this separation will continue for all eternity. They believe this interruption, aka, the "church age" will end at the rapture when Christ takes away all living and dead believers (but not the O.T. saints) to heaven to celebrate the "Marriage Feast of the Lamb" for seven years. God’s program for the Jews will then resume with the Anti-Christ, seal, trumpet and bowl judgments and a 144,000 Jewish preachers spreading the gospel (calling the 144,000 preachers is strictly a pre-trib doctrine. No where in scripture does it say they do anything except get sealed for protection. What they fail to realize is they are acknowledging that God will not leave the earth w/o a witness, but that witness will be the still here church) and concluding with Armageddon. Then the Second Coming, the instantaneous conversion of the entire Jewish population, the resurrection of the tribulation and old testament saints and of course the millennium and all that goes with it. Modern dispensationalism varies from older pre-millenialism in several ways. Older pre-millennialism taught:
1. The church was foreseen in the Old Testament.
2. The majority of Old Testament prophecy foretold the coming of Christ to die for our sins followed by a second coming to reclaim His earthly kingdom.
3. The present age of grace was designed by God and predicted in the Old Testament.
4. That one could divide the biblical timeline any way they chose as long as they allowed for a millennial era after His second coming.
5. That specific signs must precede His second Coming.
6. There are two resurrections, the righteous before the Millennium and the unrighteous after the Millennium prior to the Great White Throne Judgment.
Modern Dispensationalism teaches the only way to divide biblical time is in seven dispensations. The church era is the sixth dispensation and the last one will be the millennial age after the second coming. It is from this division of time that Dispensationalism gets its name. They also teach that no signs precede the "rapture-stage" of the Second Coming, which according to their theology may occur at any moment. However, they state that there are signs that precede the "revelation-stage" of His second coming. They believe that the first stage is undated and not announced but the second stage is dated and announced.
Dispensationalism has introduced a third resurrection. The so-called tribulation saints after Armageddon. It has taken a far more rigid standpoint and several new approaches to prophetic interpretation that the church hadn’t heard of until just a couple of centuries ago. In contrast, Christian theology has always seen the unity of Israel and the church. The elect of all the ages are seen as one people, with one Savior, one destiny. This can be shown by examining a few Old Testament prophesies with their fulfillment.
If the church is found fulfilling any of “Israel's” promises as contained in the new testament or anywhere else in scripture, then modern dispensational theology is refuted. (The following scripture quotes are all from the NKJV)
A promise to Israel -
"Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' There it shall be said to them, 'You are sons of the living God.' - Hosea 1:10
Fulfilled by the church -
“What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As He says also in Hosea: "I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved." "And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' There they shall be called sons of the living God." - Romans 9:22-26
A promise to Israel -
“Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they shall say, 'You are my God!'" - Hosea 2:23
Fulfilled by the church -
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. -1 Peter 2:9-10