One. A Literal Reading of the Bible according to Dispensationalists
Hoyt claims that his reading of the Bible, and for that matter that of dispensationalists in general, is the only literal reading. His essay zeroes in on the coming kingdom of God, enumerating a great deal of biblical verses. For this reason, it is not easy to follow Hoyt’s logic unless one is deeply versed in many of the biblical verses Hoyt is quoting. What matters is, Hoyt sheds light on the seemingly conflicting aspects among all the verses on the kingdom of God from the Scriptures. Quoting Hoyt verbatim, Psalms 10:16 seems to speak of the kingdom as having been always existed, yet Daniel 2:44 appears to set a certain definite point of beginning in it. Further, Psalms 103:19 says the kingdom is universal, while Isaiah 24:13 seems to speak of a local rule. If accepted at face value, the Scriptures do seem to have conflicting views on what the kingdom of God is all about. The reconciling strategy of Hoyt in response to such seeming contradiction at many points is to presume that there are two phases in the kingdom of God, which Hoyt provides little rationale. According to Hoyt, the kingdom of God is composed of the universal phase and the mediatorial phase, both of which are connected organically. The mediatorial phase has to do with the method of ruling; the universal phase the extent of God’s rule. When explaining the mediatorial kingdom of God, Hoyt begins with Abraham, the first of the patriarchs, instead of Adam, in order to argue for the origin of the mediatorial rule of God. This seems to make sense in a way. However, why leaving out Adam? In the New Testament, particularly from Paul’s perspective (Romans 5 corresponds Christ to Adam), wouldn’t it make more sense to say that the first mediator was Adam, instead of Abraham? This is especially because Adam was among many members of the first humanity, given that when Cain was dreadful of being murdered, it was not Adam whom he was fearful, but other members of humanity. Even so, Hoyt is insistent on the beginning of mediatorial rule not with Adam, but with Abraham, calling it the only literal reading of the Bible. Is that so? I am doubtful of it. From my perspective, a reading that takes into account the contextual, literary backgrounds might be more literal than Hoyt seems to think. Thus, calling his approach the literal reading does not make sense to me. The most natural (and therefore literal) reading would be that of taking into consideration the genre, the context, the literary background, and any other factor that might help with reading the Bible in its original context, in my opinion.
One more thing I would like to point out is the powerful appeal of the word literal to many traditional Christians back then, and even now. The emergence of dispensationalism was in the heat of the controversy between traditional Christianity and numerous attacks on it from the fronts of secularism and modernism, which catapulted dispensationalism into being one of the defenders of traditional Christianity (of course this is not at all the dominant contributing factor to the emergence of dispensationalism). Seen this way, the fact that dispensationalists appealed to the word literal to gain the momentum among the Christian circles indirectly shows that they have not looked closely enough into what their contexts and circumstances were. This is so because their reading strategy is different from that of the traditional Protestantism, from that of the medieval or early Christians, from that of contemporary evangelicals who are not dispensationalist, and etc. If theirs is the only literal reading, then all other readings are non-literal, lacking in some aspects when it comes to reading the Bible, let alone showing their negligence of reflecting on how and where their reading strategy came from. Thus, I believe that the dispensationalists’ bible reading should stop everything else before they engage in some in-depth self-reflections on how they read the Bible and why they do it that way.
Two. Did God grant different administrations to Israel and the Church?
The next issue which has made me to conclude that dispensationalists need to rethink how they read the Bible is that they presume different administrations of God for Israel and the Church. This is nowhere to be found in the Bible. Giving the dispensationalist reading the benefit of the doubt, there is a circumstantial factor for allowing dispensationalists to make a distinction between Israel and the Church. That is, all historic Christian churches and denominations have grown from a de-facto separation from the Jews and Judaism, albeit such separation was not something to be recommended. Worse yet, as historical reality has solidified, it was beginning to be seen that Christianity was and has always been for Gentiles, and never for the Jews. What saddens me is that the dispensationalist reading of the Bible seems to me to be a parasite on this tragic relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles, for the Bible never accepts it as a given reality. For example, Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians speaks of the unity between the Jews and the Gentiles in Christ (ch. 2). Furthermore, what has been grafted is the Gentile Christian group, not the Jewish Christians. Paul goes on to say, “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:6).
As we all acknowledge, Christianity has been suffering with its chronic anti-semitism (and anti-Judaism), and it seems that the dispensationalists’ bible reading seem to take this tragedy as something given. This way of reading the Bible has been expanded into claiming that the physical restoration of Israel in its ancient land should happen, not to speak of its physical sacrificial systems and physical temple. In my opinion, this totally misses the point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If that is the way the restoration of the land should happen, why did Jesus say, “blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mt 5:5). If the physical Jerusalem should be restored, why did Revelation record that the new Jerusalem shall come down from heaven (21:2)? If the sacrificial system and the temple should be physically restored, why did Jesus say, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19)? While dispensationalists still argue that theirs is the only literal, right way of reading the Bible, assuming so will relegate and insult all the previous readings of the Bible. Doubtless, the dispensationalists reading strategy partially stems from the guilt the historic church shares together with dispensationalism, which is their looking down on Israel and the Jews, misunderstanding the importance of it in God’s kingdom (e.g. Romans 11:26). Even so, the dispensationalists still need to examine where they came from and how they have come to such reading strategy of the Bible. I will come back within the next couple of days with a review of Michael Gorman’s Reading Revelation Responsibly. Thank you.