Dispensationalism's Origins

Dispensationalism is a very popular eschatology today and is the majority view of most Christians in America. Defining it as “…the name suggests, dispensationalists believe that God deals with humanity through a series of distinct periods. Although they differ on the exact number of these eras, most believe that there are seven dispensations including innocence, conscience or moral responsibility, human government, promise, the law, the church, and the Millennium. In each of these ages there is a unique revelation of the divine will, and humankind is tested by obedience to this standard. The 7th dispensation, the Millennium, is inaugurated by the return of Christ in two stages: the 1st, a secret rapture, which removes the Church before the Great Tribulation devastates the earth; and the 2nd, Christ’s coming with the Church to establish the kingdom. The Jews have a prominent place in these events and by the time the Millennium is established most of them are converted to Christ. During the millennial age the resurrected saints will rule the world with their Lord. Peace and prosperity will come to the earth and worship will center in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. At the beginning of the Millennium all or most people will be believers, but some of their descendants will not accept Christ and they’ll join Satan in a revolt against God. This final example of human depravity will be defeated by divine intervention, the last judgment held, and the eternal state of heaven and hell established. This interpretation of the millennial hope is currently the most widely held millennial view among Evangelicals” (Gregg, xiv - xv. Foreword).

What of this eschaton’s origins though? Being the most popular view of the day, where did it originate from and where did it come from? Has it always been taught by the Church consensus that the Church and Israel are distinct from one another? Has the Church always taught a secret rapture will happen to the Church? The answer (surprising to some) is no to both. In this paper, I will be discussing the origins of dispensationalism, its history, its possible influencers, and those potential influences’ ideals. My hope is that this can edify the body of Christ. My other hope is that others will look into the history and do their own research too on this topic.

The history of dispensationalism starts with the main eschaton that came before its creation, historicism. Historicism “is the historic Protestant interpretation of the book [of Revelation]…sees [it]…as a prewritten record of the course of history from the time of the apostles to the end of the world. Fulfillment is thus considered to be in progress at present and has been unfolding for nearly 2000 years” (Gregg. 2). The eschatology historically started off Roman Catholic, strongly originating from a loyal Roman Catholic Joachim of Floris (1130-1201). This eschaton “was taken over by most of the Franciscans, especially in Paris, and influenced many in Europe of the 13th and 14th centuries. Though Joachim was loyal to the church of Rome, many during this period who followed his system began to find in Revelation’s 1st beast a symbol of the Roman papacy. It was this element in historicism that later galvanized the Reformers in their resistance to Rome” (Gregg. 31). Martin Luther would be one of the 1st commentators to see Revelation from Chapter 4 and onwards in this way. “Luther’s general approach to Revelation” would be followed by virtually all the Reformers and by Protestants well into the 19thcentury” (Gregg, 31). A strong eschaton during the Reformation, the counter-Reformation was done by the Roman Catholics. Defending the Roman Catholic Church were two Spanish Jesuits, Luis de Alcazar and Francisco de Ribera. Alcazar formulated preterism while Ribera formulated a futurist idea, foreseeing the events in Revelation as a near future and about the final things at the end of the world. More will be brought up about this shortly with Francisco Ribera’s futurist view but I have mentioned it so as for the reader to keep it in mind. The historicist view depended entirely on putting historical data into the whole of the book of Revelation in order to make it work. This all worked out fine and dandy until the 19th century. “The 19th Century presented new challenges to those of the continuous-historical persuasion. [They] had not expected history to continue quite so long, and now interpreters had to find room for the new historical data, like the French Revolution and its results” (Gregg 32). Due to this and a large-scale rise to biblical criticism and a sharp incline in new more liberal theology and other ideals, historicism as an eschaton became largely discredited and this opened up the field for the rise of the futurist approach, ultimately giving dispensationalism a spot to start spreading its roots more and more until finally after some initial hostility towards it (since futurism was originated from Roman Catholicism) the Protestants in the majority along with many other denominations eventually accepted it and ultimately accepted dispensationalism making it into the popular eschaton of our time period today.

So who are the influencers and people responsible? John Nelson Darby is the creator of dispensationalism but where and who influenced this man to come up with his ideas? Earlier I’d mentioned Jesuit Francisco Ribera. Briefly, Ribera taught and created a version of futurism where he believed the first few chapters of Revelation were about pagan Rome. The rest he limited to a yet future period of 3 ½ literal years, immediately prior to the 2nd Coming. He was rebutting the Protestant’s historicism view and giving this view to fuel the Counter Reformation teachings. Ribera also denied a day-year principle too in eschatology. Ribera applied all of Revelation to the end time rather than to the history of the Church. It is a fact that Cardinal Robert Bellarmine agreed with Ribera in his work Polemic Lectures Concerning the Disputed Points of the Christian Belief Against the Heretics of This Time. This futurist view of Ribera’s influenced Manuel Lacunza, another Jesuit priest that went down the futurist route like Ribera had before him. Lacunza also was influenced by two other Jesuits, Euodio Papia (who supposed three comings of Christ) and Antonio Viera. Lacunza admits in his works that he had read Papia’s work, “The 2nd Epoch of the church” and credits it “with containing much of what he covered, particularly [Lacunza’s] notes on Revelation 20” as he felt the need to “defend himself against charges of plagiarism by saying he had never read all of Papia’s work (Need, 54). Viera is also one Jesuit also that held to a futurist view that Lacunza credits as well about his work Christ’s Kingdom on the earth (De regno Christi in terries consumnato). Ribera, Papia, and Viera all are an influence on the views Manuel Lacunza would come to conclude upon. 

Manuel Lacunza, under the pen name Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra wrote a 3 volume set titled The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. I’m going to go through his work to properly explain it because Lacunza’s work in eschatology is a huge factor on historical reasons dispensationalism exists in the first place. In his work, Lacunza argued off first that novelty isn’t always a bad thing and left it no secret admitting that he was out to make a new idea to bring progress to Christianity. Reading Papia’s work, Lacunza had developed an idea that there were secrets in scripture and that he had been enlightened upon some of these said secrets so therefore, he writes this to give his reasoning on these secrets. Some things to note first is that Lacunza held to having a high view of the Scriptures and pointed to some of the “defects of the Church Doctors” (Lacunza, 30). In his work he proposes that we have not yet arrived at the full truth and that God has not given full revelation of what His Word is saying. That God has not given us all wisdom. He thinks it is being revealed now in His day and age what was not formerly revealed yet. Scripture is true in his eyes but as time progresses and we inch closer to the 2nd Coming of Jesus, he believes that there will be a progression of the truth known to all mankind and truths will be revealed to us and the majority that we previously did not know about them until now. In other words, he believed he was giving a new divine enlightenment about the scriptures. He quotes and discusses briefly Louis de Alcazar and Hugo Grotius, two preterist scholars, using them as examples of folks with different opinions than that of the majority consensus and uses the Church Fathers so as to discredit those that would oppose him about his new ideas (Lacunza, 51). Matter of fact, he is so concerned about defending himself that it takes him until the 4th Chapter in his book to even propose this new view and system of eschatology that he has come up with. 

Lacunza believed that the timing of the end of the world was also fast approaching due to his being exiled from the Roman Catholic Church and the dismembering by the current Pope of the Jesuit order. He was definitely not a pre-tribulation believer but for sure does lay the foundations for it being potentially taught. He did however, believe in spacing out the Great Tribulation differently than anyone had before him saying “some place it [the Great Persecution] immediately before the coming of the Lord; others and I believe the greater number, observing in this a very great inconvenience which might ruin the whole system, take to themselves the liberty of placing this great event some time before, in such a way so as to leave a space of time, great or small, determinate or indeterminate, between Antichrist’s end and Christ’s coming” (Lacunza, 52). This lays out the idea that you could take liberties in interpretation if you question the status quo around you. Most would never do or interpret it this way but Lacunza takes liberties and questions why this can’t be interpreted this way so he does it. Expounding, he says “Christ will return from heaven to earth, when his time has come, when those times and seasons are arrived, which the Father hath put in his own power, Acts 1:7. He’ll come accompanied by his saints, now raised from the dead: by those I mean, which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead…Behold! The Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints, Jude 14…His visit will not be so short, but with more leisure than is thought. He will not come to judge the dead alone; but likewise, and in the first place, the living. Consequently, this judgment of the quick and the dead cannot be one and the same, but two judgments, widely differing not only in substance and matter, but also in time. Whence, it follows…that there must be a very considerable space of time between the coming of the Lord which we expect, and the judgment of the dead, or the universal resurrection” (Lacunza 57-58). He asks if it is “possible to grant the space of time upon the system of the interpreters…and [if it is] possible to deny it upon the system of the scriptures”. Clearly, Lacunza has and will be arguing that there is more than one resurrection and that there is in fact two at different times. He states that there are many difficulties to this view he is presenting because “the system…proposed carries a great resemblance to error, and sounds like the fable of the Chiliasts, or Millenarians” and that this is what most will believe about him because it is so similar. His second diffilculty (to him in explaining this position) is that he places “the Lord’s coming in glory and majesty long before the general resurrection, and besides, do say, and affirm, that He will come with his thousands of saints already raised up” (Lacunza 58). “Whence it follows evidently, I [he] must admit two resurrections, one of the saints who come with Christ, the other long after of all the rest of men: which is contrary to the common sentiments of the theologians, who hold it as a thing most certain, and as a truth not to be disputed, that is, once only, and upon all the sons of Adam without distinction, in one and the same time and instant” (Lacunza 58). 

Lacunza confirms his belief in two resurrections and defends chiliasm later in a great way in his work. I admit being amillennialist I should be biased against him but actually think he has some good points on this issue of the rejection of chiliasm entirely from the Church. It’s quite a read if you get the time to read his points on that. He sees Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 of the Revelation quite literal with Chapter 19 being first and Chapter 20 coming next in order whereas many interpret Chapter 19 being an end and Chapter 20 starting over as many believe the Revelation is a book that is revealing the second coming and the end of time events from different vantage points, like a cycle too for some. Either way, he makes a compelling case against the amillennial view being the best view and in my opinion gives an interesting take at least. Another difficulty that Lacunza admits to having is the resurrection of the flesh in one company and at a time, in other words, he has a difficult time believing the resurrection of the flesh is one singular event, hence he argues for two separate resurrection events. His argument is that every man has to die at once if the Coming and Resurrection is one single event. He clearly accepts Jude’s “holy ones” (v. 14) are the saints and not angelic hosts and argues that if God could raise Mary, He could do more than one resurrection as well (Lacunza, 98). Personally, I think his argument is easily refuted on this if you interpret Jude to be talking of angels coming down with Him or that he is talking about Jesus and the saints ridding the world of false doctrines of devils. Likewise, if one takes the refutation I just gave it could easily coincide with the event Paul describes in 1 Corinthian 15 as well. To me, this view of his seems weird, unneeded, and a bit strange but at the same time I understand where he is coming from and think it an interesting take on eschatology even if I believe it is wrong. He also argues that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 has some alive in this resurrection event so therefore believes that God will give a shout so that these dead can live and that this is the 1st Resurrection in Revelation 20. He believes two resurrections must be so because if it were not so it would, he believes, contradict that all individuals of the human race good and bad should rise, which could not take place he argues unless all had died; and after that resurrection, that some should still live and remain until the coming of the Lord” (Lacunza, 99). Clearly, his difficulties have some merits to them in my opinion. However, one could also argue that the 1st Resurrection is the heavenly life of those in Christ before His 2nd Coming and argue that the righteous will not take part in the “2nd death which has no power” (Rev. 20:6) over the saints. Those righteous spirits (Heb. 12:23) await only the reuniting of the soul and body after the final judgment, in which all things are made new (Rev. 21:1) so you could argue that as a point against Lacunza. Jude also does not have to be about what he states in context either, as God is with the saints and with us God always judges the wicked who dwell among the righteous. Jude in context also is speaking against the false teachers of this time as well but still Lacunza makes a credible argument for himself, though it can be argued against and refuted. Personally, I believe the 2nd Coming has to be synonymous with the Resurrection because it is the saints’ salvation, Him and His Coming, and Resurrection. Otherwise, many Scriptures do not seem to line up nor do they make sense. In pages 104 and 110-111 he concludes that the resurrection of flesh being a one-time event is a false assertion and gives “contradictions” to back himself up but in my opinion can all mostly be solved by ridding his own false assertion of Jude. The rest of his Volume I involves Lacunza challenging the status quo of interpretations of the book of Daniel and the coming of the Antichrist which is interesting because he cannot fathom every part of the world actually bowing to a Man of Sin so he interprets the beasts in Daniel to be mystery religions and also applies this spiritual ideal to the Antichrist, not as a man but as a system and a body of unbelievers. He concludes that due to this increase in a spirit in the people of antichristian sentiments, that there will be a conversion of the Jews due to this, though he cannot find it anywhere specifically that this is the case. He accepts that there will be a Great Tribulation and that the Christians will have to endure it. Mostly though, he believes there is a future for the Jews in this and says that the Jews are not divorced from God. He quotes Isaiah 15 and Jeremiah 3 saying that the Jews “are under penance” (Lacunza, 372) signifying he does see some kind of distinction between the Church and Israel in some form or fashion possibly, OR he is simply saying he believes many Jews will come to Christ through the Great Persecution. Ultimately, whether this is the case or not, these ideals of Manuel Lacunza would ultimately influence another man quite a lot. This man was Edward Irving.

Edward Irving was a minister originally a part of the Church of Scotland. He had a huge love for eschatology; for much of his life Irving had been enamored with the subject of prophecy and believed the coming of Christ was near-approaching due in part to the many revivals that had been going on in his day that he had been a part of. He thought the revivals that came up in the last 30 years or so for him in his life were significant happenings which he called the “latter rain” (Preface Lacunza, v) of the outpouring of the Spirit (Mal. 3:3; Zech. 8:9). Friends with Joseph Wolff, who met his wife through Irving, and the eccentric politician Henry Drummond (both having former Catholic connections, mainly Wolff), somehow Lacunza’s writings came into Irving’s hands on a trip to London. It may be coincidence with these Catholic connections or it could just be that he stumbled across Lacunza by accident (Note: Lacunza’s work did get popular in many areas of the world; it would not be impossible for Irving to have just gotten his hands on the works because of intrigue and the popularity it received in certain circles). Having read Lacunza, Irving enjoyed and liked the guy so much that he translates Lacunza’s Castilian writings into English so English readers can read it, going so far as to learn Castilian just so he could translate it. He likes Lacunza so much so that he says that he hopes to see this Jesuit in the New Jerusalem in his preface and was dismayed at the fact that Lacunza was dead years ago in 1801 before he had discovered him. A Protestant enjoying the work of a Jesuit Catholic priest seems rare but with Lacunza’s background I believe it is easy to see why a Protestant holding to the Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland would accept this certain Jesuit. Lacunza held that the Roman Papacy would eventually fall and become apostate against Christ. The Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland specifically rejects the “Roman Antichrist” and anything that is “papist” in origin for the most part so it is very surprising that Irving would give it a chance to read it but he did do so and was more than willing to accept many of Lacunza’s ideals, perhaps due to the fact that Lacunza was an exiled Jesuit priest though, Irving didn’t count Lacunza as one of the Catholics. Eventually by 1830, Irving would be teaching a Secret Rapture Doctrine and would eventually be forced to leave the Church of Scotland, thus causing him along with a select few to found the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church in 1832. Some interesting things to note about Edward Irving though is that though he taught a secret rapture doctrine Irving never taught a pre-tribulation rapture view until Margaret MacDonald’s visions would influence him much later on in his ministry. Darby is the creator of the pre-trib doctrine, not MacDonald nor Irving, but Irving is known to have taught pre-trib until his death in 1834. In the September issue in 1830 of the Irvingite Journal, a writer discussing Revelation's 7 churches taught that "Philadelphia" will be "caught up" before a future "period of great tribulation" while the "Laodicean church" will be left behind "on earth" to face that period. This is as far as I can tell the first ever clear public teaching of the pre-tribulation view. Privately though Darby is the first to have done so and may have beat Irving to it. 

This vision of MacDonald’s happened sometime in 1830 but happened definitely after Darby had entered into the Plymouth Brethren circle. From then on til his death in 1834, Irving would spread the theory of the ‘secret rapture’ in the churches. His eschatology mostly favored that of the futuristic view Lacunza displayed in The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. He interpreted Romans 11 as being unfulfilled, believed that when the Gentile age ended, that the “Holy Spirit would turn to His ancient people, the Jews, and bring unto them those days of refreshing spoken of by all of the Holy Prophets since the world began…” (Preface Lacunza, v) and believed that the Jews would be greatly persecuted and that this would result in them seeing a “restoration of the nations to their own land” (Preface Lacunza, vi). I find it interesting that Irving predicted something would happen allowing the Jewish people back into their lands in the 1800s way before the state of Israel would come back in 1948. It doesn’t mean he is correct nor that this is actually a good thing prophetically speaking for the state of Israel per se but it is definitely interesting that he did predict it. “Irving developed the Church/Israel distinction found in Lacunza’s document, adding at Revelation 4:1 a secret rapture according to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, and the return of Christ and his saints to judge the earth after the ‘outpouring of divine judgment upon the earth’. Modern dispensational millennialism thus has deep Jewish and Roman roots…” It is strange to thing that had “providence…not placed it in Irving’s, and then in Darby’s hands, Ben-Ezra would have remained a Roman Catholic document, relegated to obscurity as had been the fate of Vieira’s and Papia’s documents” (Need, 56). 

The influence of Lacunza on Irving would ultimately make its way as time went on introducing itself to the Plymouth Brethren’s early leaders, most notably coming to John Nelson Darby who would develop and be considered the father of modern dispensationalism after being seriously injured from falling off his horse. Darby is known to have stated that he began to believe that the kingdom in the Book of Isaiah and the rest of the Old Testament were different from the Christian Church after this injury. Darby was once heavily Roman Catholic and like Irving who was expelled from the Church of Scotland, Darby was expelled from the Church of Ireland for his differing views. Darby’s work would influence Scofield along with many and all the dispensational teachers of today. 

It is still arguable though if Darby met Irving at all or just read some of Irving’s works (Darby did read Irving’s works eventually in his ministry). We can only speculate if they had much conversation or any at all with one another that could have led to Darby inventing the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine held by dispensationalist today. There is a possibility that Joseph Wolff introduced him but this is not for sure known. We know Darby went to at least one conference on prophecy held at Powerscourt Castle and that Irving frequented these. Darby also quotes Irving in his own writings too so it is extremely possible. If he had though, it is certainly not a stretch in the least to think that Darby was still not influenced by him along with Catholicism. Even without conversation with Irving, he had a Catholic influence anyways as well, being that he had been a Catholic originally before he went Anglican. 

So where did Darby get the pre-trib view? The “answer would be that it was in the air in the 1820s and 1830s among eager students of unfulfilled prophecy" (Bruce, 58) but as far as the true origins of this doctrine, the “historians are still trying to determine how or where Darby got it. . . . Possibly, we may have to settle for Darby's own explanation. He claimed that the doctrine virtually jumped out of the pages of Scripture once he accepted and consistently maintained the distinction between Israel and the church". (Weber, 21-22). The view was “adopted with eagerness; it suited certain preconceived opinions, and it was accepted by some at that which harmonized contradictory thoughts, whether such thoughts, or any of them, rested on the sure warrant of God; written Word" (Tregelles, 35). 

Sharing this history in my opinion is of utmost importance because churches and people in general do not study how or what or why they believe in certain things more often than not. It is not until Manuel Lacunza, a little before 1800 that I can find anyone besides Lacunza, Irving, and Darby in history that shows any similarity to dispensationalism heretic, or Church Father. The closest one I have found to distinguish a difference between the Church from Israel is the heretic Marcion. “Marcion recognizes the historical value of the Hebrew Scriptures with everything promised by the God of the Old Testament of Israel only that this god is not the Christian God and the Messiah expected by the Hebrew people is not Jesus Christ. The Jews [according to him] can wait for the Messiah according to their prophecies, but he has nothing to do with Christianity’s Christ” (Ionita, 73). It should be noted though that “from the beginning…for Marcion, the Church was an ‘absolute novelty’, which had nothing to do with Judaism or other ancient religion. H Raisanen, Marcion’s matchless defender…admits Marcion ‘represented an extreme position: he believed that there is no connection between Judaism and Christianity’” (Ionita 75). I’ll leave this to the reader to decide the significance of this but out of all of the history of the Christian Church Marcion is the only one (so far that I have found) that does distinguish Israel and the Church because he excludes the Old Testament God and the Old Testament, meaning that it is non-existent and non-important to him. Thus, Darby’s idea to distinguish, although different, has some eerie and uncanny similarities to the heretic Marcion in some respect since both distinguish Israel and the Church from each other, the difference being that Marcion completely excluded Israel from the Church and the plan of God while Darby fortunately did not do so. Either way though you would think that in all of Church history you would find one Church Father or heretic besides Marcion in 1800 years worth of history that would suggest a distinction between the two “but prior to” [the 19th century and Lacunza], no hint of any approach to such a belief can be found in any Christian literature from Polycarp down.... Surely, a doctrine that finds no exponent or advocate in the whole history and literature of Christendom, for eighteen hundred years after the founding of the Church - a doctrine that was never taught by a Father or Doctor of the Church in the past - that has no standard Commentator or Professor of the Greek language in any Theological School until the middle of the 19th century, to give it approval, and that is without a friend, even to mention its name amongst the orthodox teachers or the heretical sects of Christendom… ought to undergo careful scrutiny before it is admitted and tabulated as part of 'the faith once for all delivered unto the saints" (Cameron, 72-73). 

Citations:

• Gregg, Steve. Foreword. Revelation, Four Views: A Parallel Commentary. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1997. Pgs. Xiv-Xv. Print.
• Gregg, Steve. Revelation, Four Views: A Parallel Commentary. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1997. Pgs. 2, 31, 32. Print.
• Need, Ovid. Death of the Church Victorious. Sovereign Grace Publishers. 2002. Pg. 53, 56. Print.
• Lacunza, Manuel. Foreword. The Coming of Messiah in Glory And Majesty. Vol. 1. N.p.: Seeley, 1827. Pg. v. Print.
• Lacunza, Manuel. The Coming of Messiah in Glory And Majesty. Vol. 1. N.p.: Seeley, 1827. Pg. 30, 51-52, 57-58, 98-99, 104, 110-111, 372. Print.
• Ionita, Alexandru. Israel in Marcion’s Theology and the Church of Contemporary Marcionism for the Orthodox Church. Revista Teologia. 2013. Pgs.73, 75, . Web.
• Bruce, F.F. “The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin” in the Evangelical Quarterly. Vol. XLVII, No. 1. Jan-Mar, 1975. Pg. 58. Article. Print.
• Weber, Timothy. Living In The Shadow Of The Second Coming: American Premillennialism 1875-1982, Zondervan. 1983. Pgs. 21-22. Print.
• Tregelles, S.P. The Hope of Christ's Coming: How is it Taught in Scripture and Why? 2006. Pg. 35. Print. 
• Cameron, Robert. Scriptural Truth About The Lord's Return. 1922. Pg. 72-73. Print.
• The Confession of Faith of The Kirk of Scotland OR The National Covenant. August 30, 1639. Session 23. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics (CRTA). http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_standards/index.html?mainframe=/documents/wcf_standards/p345-nat_covenant.html Web.