Relation of Dispensationalism to Theology (4/12)

Part One
INTRODUCTION: 2 RELATION OF DISPENSATIONALISM TO THEOLOGY
A DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY
By Charles F Baker

Dr. Berkhof is one of the very few theologians who has taken the trouble to even deal with the subject of dispensationalism, and it is evident from the above quotation that he has either been reading some dispensationalists who were deeply in error, or he has failed to grasp what dispensationalists were trying to say. The fact of the matter is that many dispensationalists have gone out of their way to explain that this is exactly what they do not believe. In fact, Berkhof quotes Bullinger, whom many consider to be extreme in his dispensational views: “Man was then (in the first dispensation) what is called ‘under probation.’ This marks off that Administration sharply and absolutely; for man is not now under probation. To suppose that he is so, is a popular fallacy which strikes at the root of the doctrines of grace. Man has been tried and tested, and has proved to be a ruin.”² Ryrie quotes a number of well known dispensationalists who say the same thing.³ A quotation from Pettingill perhaps expresses the point as clearly as could be stated: “Salvation has always been, as it is now, purely a gift of God in response to faith. The dispensational tests served to show man’s utter helplessness, in order to bring him to faith, that he might be saved by grace through faith plus nothing.”⁴ In the face of these plain statements it is difficult to understand how or why Berkhof and other covenant theologians continue to make such accusations.

2            Ibid., p. 291.

3            Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody Press, 1965), pp. 113-115.

4            Ibid., pp. 114, 115.

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