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God and the Bible Are Dispensational (Part Six)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
History
One of the biggest criticisms aimed at dispensationalism is the scant historical evidence for this system of interpretation. Opponents call John Nelson Darby, 19th century Anglican clergy member from Ireland, the founder of dispensationalism. They say then the early 20th century evangelical Bible teacher, C. I. Scofield, popularized it in the notes of his Scofield Reference Bible.
If dispensationalism originated in the 19th century, I would find that troublesome. Yet, it’s not how I explain the history of dispensationalism. God intended literal interpretation of the Bible, which is premillennial. You can read that in the Bible itself. For that reason, I say that premillennialism started with the apostles. From there, you can read their influence on several early patristic writers. Irenaeus reports that Papias (AD 60-130) said that “there will be a millennium after the resurrection from the dead, when the personal reign of Christ will be established on this earth.”
Systematization of Interpretation
Darby among others systematized premillennialism and a literal interpretation of scripture. Scofield and others picked up his mantle with their explanation. This could easily have been a counter to the systematization of amillennialism by covenant theology. The system of covenant theology preceded the system of dispensationalism, but premillennialism precedes amillennialism. Scripture doesn’t provide a system. However it is premillennial.
In the first century, no one spiritualized the Bible as a type of interpretation. A literal interpretation was the intention of Jesus and the Apostles. That’s what they did. Spiritualization, the warp and woof of covenant theology, didn’t occur until Roman Catholicism said that the church fulfilled Old Testament Israel.
Seven Dispensations?
Scofield introduced seven dispensations. I can agree with his seven divisions of the Bible and history. However, I would not characterize, explain, or label them the same as he did. One might add a few more divisions for clarity. As I wrote earlier, dispensations indicate the continuity and discontinuity of the workings of God in His world.
God Himself doesn’t change. That is continuity. Both out of His love and justice, He works in different manners during different periods. That is discontinuity.
As a description, I don’t like “age of grace,” speaking of the era in which we now live. Salvation always came and comes by grace. What Scofield called the age of grace, like others, I would call, the church age. God worked through Israel in the Old Testament age and in the church in the New Testament one, the latter from Christ to the rapture.
Bad Dispensationalism
Just because someone is a dispensationalist does not guarantee correct belief and practice or even right exegesis of passages. Dallas Theological Seminary probably did more to spread the system of dispensationalism than any other institution. It also though disseminated a weak or false gospel and doctrine of sanctification.
Dallas for the most part produced the free grace crowd that cheapens and distorts grace. This poses as a dispensationalist view because of its source. Cheap grace bled into independent fundamental Baptists and their anti-repentance and non-lordship teaching. They became more enamored with the soteriology of the free-gracers than historic Baptists. This fit nicely with their pragmatic church growth philosophy, pretending to be revival and the power of God.
Longtime president of Dallas, Lewis Sperry Chafer affected many with his eight volume Systematic Theology. He took his dispensationalism to an extreme, perhaps in reaction to covenant theology. He pushed his discontinuity too far. Chafer presented salvation by works in the Old Testament and by grace through faith in the New. He took Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and applied it to Jews in the Millennial Kingdom.
Holding and Teaching a Right Interpretation of Scripture
Whatever bad influence Dallas had with classic dispensationalism, it does worse in recent many years. It doesn’t require dispensationalism of its faculty. Instead, it uses its clout to sway people away from inerrancy. Dallas once pumped out serious eschatology to build a pretribulational, premillennial belief in church leaders and their churches. Now it doesn’t care if you’re premill, amill, or postmill, promoting unity with any aberrant position of eschatology.
Biblical churches and pastors must preach and train in a literal interpretation of scripture. Spiritualization and allegorization are easy ways to conform the Bible to whatever someone wants it to say. Easily, the woke churches use the Bible to teach their critical race theory, employing these means. The Words are God’s Words, but what comes out in the teaching are man’s words. Satan was fine using the Word of God to teach his will (Genesis 3, Matthew 4).
Churches need evangelization, preaching a true gospel. They also must make disciples, teaching new converts to rightly divide the Word of Truth. This requires teaching them a literal, grammatical-historical, dispensational interpretation of scripture. God and the Bible are dispensational.
God and the Bible Are Dispensational (Part Three)
The Bible did not come in one neat tidy package. God delivered it progressively through men over a period of 1500 years during history in real time, even using forty different men as human authors. As God revealed scripture, it did not come with a separate interpretive handbook and glossary for defining terms. He expected and presumes people will get it through plain reading.
As God imparted scripture through inspiration, people understood who were hearing in that day. The Old Testament audience did not need the New Testament to ascertain the writings. When He delivered more, past writings become better understood in a fuller way, bringing even greater knowledge of God’s message.
God’s Word has one meaning, yet many applications. People knew the meaning as God revealed scripture. He required the original audience to believe and practice what He wrote.
Satanic Attack on Dispensationalism
From the very beginning, Satan directly and then through the world system attacks scripture in several ways. He does this in one key manner by corrupting the meaning of God’s Word. Satan twists and also confuses the meaning. He does not want people to know with certainty what God says. Change of meaning abolishes or invalidates the authority of scripture.
Satan wants people to think and act in a different way than what God said. He does this in an incremental fashion, where people drift or move further away from scripture. The doctrine and practice of the Bible changed over the centuries through a modification of its meaning. By changing its meaning, it becomes at first a slightly different book and finally a very different one. This fulfills what Satan wants, but also satisfies the innate rebellion of man.
Changes in the meaning of the Bible relate to contemporary events and movements in history. Rather than adapting to what God said, people conform what God said to their desires or will. In a plain reading of the New Testament, churches were autonomous assemblies under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ through His Words. Satan and his system attacked them in vigorous and violent fashion.
Individual churches were vulnerable to fear of the fierce opposition of the Roman Empire. This disposed them toward reorganization favoring extra ecclesiastical hierarchy. Many moved toward greater cooperation and confederation. Prominent churches took on more dominance and authority for their leaders.
Philosophies of Men
In Colossians 2:8 Paul warns against philosophies. The New Testament addresses various heresies arising from human philosophy. Preserved early Christian writings trace the invasion of extra-scriptural thinking into the church. Doctrine and practice changed through intertwining neoplatonic philosophy with scripture. The church became something bigger than local.
The church at Rome at the center of the Roman Empire took on enormous prominence. Emperor Constantine I gave Christianity legal status in the Empire with the Edict of Milan in 313AD. When Constantine became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire in 324, Christianity became its official religion. Christianity became a state church for the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380AD. This is the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Empire was Catholic or Universal, so its state church became Catholic too.
Allegorization and Spiritualization
For a true church, local only, to become universal, allegorization or spiritualization of scripture must occur. This developed over three centuries with a unique influence, it seems, from a theologian, Origen of Alexandria. This allowed for modification of meaning to allow change in doctrine and practice. About a hundred years after Origen, Augustine further systematized allegorization of scripture, now known as covenantal theology. The Bible could become a vessel in which to pour ones own doctrine and practice by allegorizing it.
Allegorization or spiritualization gives a lot of leeway with interpretation, making it highly subjective. Someone can read what he wants into the text of scripture. This affects the authority of the Bible.
The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was led by men raised as staunch Roman Catholics. They reformed Roman Catholic doctrine, however, still preserving much allegorization and spiritualization. More than Augustine, they composed a hybrid of allegorical and literal interpretation, now still referred as covenant theology. The immediate spiritual offspring of the Protestant Reformers further systematized an approach to the interpretation of scripture. Their system of interpretation justified a state church, something not seen in the Bible. They could find it by spiritualizing the church.
Amillennialism
In the main, the church could become an actual kingdom through spiritualization, a view of the future called amillennialism. The theologians of Roman Catholicism removed the distinctions by unifying Israel and the church. The church replaced Israel. They adapted the Old Testament prophecies of Israel and the kingdom for fulfillment in the church. Instead of a future fulfillment of the New Testament prophecy of Revelation, they spiritualized it as fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.
Liberal theology easily proceeded from amillennialism. Liberals take the same approach even further, making almost everything in the Bible to mean what they want. They see now and in the future a spiritualized kingdom, a progressive social order. Jesus, the cross, the resurrection, and the gospel all take on their own meaning, most often related to advocacy of social issues. Modernism dovetailed easily and nicely from covenant theology.
Growing In and Out of Favor
Even though God and the Bible are dispensational, dispensationalism grew out of favor in mainstream teaching. In recent times, institutionalized theology portrays dispensationalism as of recent origin, arising with Darby in the 19th Century. Premillennialism, a literal interpretation of Christ’s kingdom, traces to the first century with the apostles. However, believers responded to covenant theology with a systematization of a literal interpretation of scripture in the 19th century. The Protestant system of covenant theology itself is of historically recent composition.
I contend that the rising popularity of covenant theology above dispensationalism traces to its allure to human pride. Men ascertain from God’s writings their secret meaning. This allows for a wide variety of contradictory belief and practice. Men like it when they’re free to do what they want, justified by what “God said.”
More to Come
God and the Bible Are Dispensational (Part Two)
I’m not the first person to call a literal approach to the Bible, a “desert island” approach. Stuck on an island alone, you have only a Bible. Except for a plain reading, you have nothing to tell you what it means. You could only take a literal approach. You would read a dispensational reading, which is a literal or grammatical-historical reading.
Literal does not mean ignoring poetic language or figures of speech. If after watching you eat, I said to you, “you’re a hog,” I wouldn’t mean that you were a literal hog. That is a metaphor. I am comparing you to a hog. The use of metaphors and other such figures of speech does not require a different interpretation than a literal one.
Rightly Dividing
Context
The literal interpretation sees dispensations. That is clear in the desert island reading of the Bible. This is a reason why literal interpretation stipulates division. Paul calls it “rightly dividing” (2 Tim 2:15). Parts necessitate a division of a whole. To make up the whole, each part fits into it.
Properly understood, parts of the Bible fit into the whole cohesive story of the Bible. Those parts conform to their “context.” You won’t get the parts right if you don’t understand the context. Right understanding of words requires context. Words have a root meaning, but their full meaning demands context.
Literary, Grammatical, Historical, or Syntactical
Context does convey division. One context differs from another. It might be either a literary or historical context or both. The same word in one context will very often mean something different in a different one. Reading a literal interpretation requires right dividing, which requires understanding words in their context.
One must also consider the grammatical or syntactical reading of a word within that context, which we call usage. In a similar context, we see words used in similar ways. We know the meaning of a word by the way biblical authors use it. Very often, we also witness the same or similar wording around a word that informs its meaning.
Divisions in the Bible
How do divisions appear in the Bible? Divisions appear in the Bible like they would a telling of history or within the narrative of a true story. At its very start, God creates everything. No other time compares to that time. God’s creation of man then separates the first five days from what follows. A little later, when man sins, everything changes. Before sin, man is innocent; afterwards, he’s not. This alters everything, including and most of all man’s relationship with God.
A child for Adam and Eve separates a new age. Cain’s murder of Abel marks another. Noah’s flood changes life and history in a most extraordinary way. The Tower of Babel brings something entirely new, incomparable to the former time. God’s call of and the obedience of Abraham launches another age. The deliverance from Egypt, the Exodus, divides one era from another. So does Moses receiving God’s law on Mt. Sinai.
The Conquest of the Promised Land marks something entirely different. Reign of Hebrew Kings brought significant change. Assyria dispersed ten northern tribes into near oblivion. The forces of Babylon destroyed Solomon’s Temple and deported Israel into captivity.
Malachi ended God’s revelation to and through the prophets. Emmanuel was born. The church started. Jesus died, arose, ascended into heaven, and poured out the Holy Spirit from heaven, who indwelt believers. The New Testament was complete. The Lord will return.
Discontinuity and Continuity
Discontinuity
Every division brings a new, different normal. Scripture is replete with discontinuity. I’m representing the Bible as a reader. With a literal reading, distinct breaks occur in the narrative. The above list is not complete, but it also does not represent the major divisions of biblical history. Certain divisions are more important or vital than others to the extent that they rise to a greater level of dissection between one period and another.
A primary division occurs between the Old and New Testaments. You see the comings of Jesus, first and second, and what’s in between, the church. Before that, Israel takes a prominent place. Much in the Bible points to a future kingdom, beginning with the Messiah.
Continuity
The central figure of scripture, the One and Only God, holy and immutable, however, brings continuity. One God wrote one Bible that is one story. Many major themes cross over or through the points of distinction. God provides one way of salvation all the way through. Nothing contradicts.
Characters in the Bible speak of the story of the Bible. They acknowledge continuity and discontinuity. A few prime examples really mark this reality. One, godly believers recognize Jesus as fulfilling Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. Two, the disciples or apostles expected a real future kingdom earth inaugurated by the promised King. The resurrection meant Jesus could mark a new era as Savior and much later distinguish another as Judge and King.
If you just picked up a Bible with suitable reading comprehension, it all fits together in one cohesive message with a literal meaning. You don’t need allegorization or spiritualization to make everything harmonize. Everything harmonizes with a literal reading. You don’t have to read anything into the text so that it won’t contradict something else.
More to Come
God and the Bible Are Dispensational (Part One)
God Wants Understanding of His Word
God delivered His Word for men to understand and by which they would live. Men must study it and then rightly divide it (2 Tim 2:15), but God made its meaning accessible (Rom 10:8-10, Deut 30:11-14). He will judge men according to it (John 12:48).
The Bible is not indecipherable. Its degree of opaqueness relates almost entirely to desire and belief. Proverbs 2:3-5 say these such things:
3 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and] liftest up thy voice for understanding; 4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; 5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
Still People May Not Understand God’s Word
Rebellious
On the other hand, Psalm 106:7 says,
Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.
God wanted understanding, but those who did not have “ears to hear” could not understand. Ezekiel 12:2 explains that some “have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.” Not understanding does not always relate to supernatural blinding. A student in class may not like the subject, so he does not comprehend or retain. Almost everything is lost on him. Furthermore, Jesus revealed in Matthew 13:13-15:
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Satanic
A sufficient degree of the understanding of scripture becomes unattainable to the one not caring about it or wanting it. An unbeliever might hear and comprehend, but still miss what God says. This testifies to the uniqueness of scripture. Isaiah 8:17 says: “And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.” To some, God hides His face, and others will look for God, apparently finding Him because of that looking.
The Apostle Paul says Satan works toward deluminating blindness. “[T]he god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor 4:4). What someone might ordinarily understand, he cannot because Satan keeps him from getting it through various Satanic means.
God Wrote His Word with Plain Meaning
Since God wrote a book to man to understand, a man would expect a reading of it in accordance with a plain meaning. God intended accessibility of its message. Men would live by what He said even from a child.
I didn’t make this up. But how I explain plain meaning is understanding scripture like the people heard it in that day. What did the words mean and how were they used at the very time men wrote and received them?
What was God saying in Genesis to the original audience of Genesis? Or, what was the Lord saying in Matthew to the original audience of Matthew? When someone gets that interpretation, what God was really saying, what is that called? Someone might call that a literal interpretation or a grammatical-historical interpretation.
An original audience, the children of Israel, received the original manuscripts of the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah or Pentateuch. As they read through those writings, they received more understanding of each part as they also knew more of the whole. When God gave other inspired writings through various other human authors, such as Joshua, Judges, historical books, and poetic ones, the meaning of the previously given books, the Torah, did not change in meaning. Genesis still means the same as it did when the first readers first set eyes on it.
God Changed His Methods and Manner of Operation Sometimes
Different Eras or Ages
As God gave more writings, one could understand more of His will. Through history, sometimes God changed His methods or His manner of operations. God didn’t change. As He continued communicating with mankind, He used different, sometimes new genres. He spoke in different ways. God used symbolic or figurative language among other types of writing.
Looking back at proceeding time periods, historians recognize eras, ages, or periods of time. They may disagree with the dividing points for these periods, but they admit shifts in thinking and lifestyle. You’ve heard of premodern, modern, and postmodern as a description. Surely you’ve heard said, ancient, middle, and modern. Broader periods can break down into even more detail.
The Bible is Dispensational
The changes of methods and manners of God as seen in scripture also divide into epochs of time. In order to systematize a literal understanding of scripture, grammatical and historical, men organized scripture into dispensations. The system of interpretation became known as dispensationalism. Dispensation- alism recognized the continuity and discontinuity of God’s methods and manner of operation across these various ages.
God is dispensational in His revelation of Him and His will. The Bible is a dispensational book. Any literal or true view of history is dispensational.
Old Testament Priority
Succeeding new generations of recipients of original scripture could understand what they read in their day. Scripture did not change in meaning. However, God makes prophesies. He uses prophets to tell the future. The understanding of a divine prophecy could increase with time, closer to or after its fulfillment (cf. Daniel 12:4). The Babylonian captivity shed light on the prophesies of captivity. The return to the land after captivity shed light on the prophesies of return to the land.
The added understanding with a fulfillment of prophecy is not a change in meaning. God wanted understanding of what He said. He gave His Word to man to be lived. God meant the original audience of the Old Testament to understand its meaning. “Hearing” meant understanding (Deut 19:20, 21:21, 31:12-13). God did inspire the Old Testament with a New Testament priority. The Bible does not read as though God a thousand or more years later said what He really was saying in what He earlier inspired.
More to Come
Peter Ruckman’s Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy, part 2 of 2
In part one of this study of Peter Ruckman’s heresy about different ways of salvation in different periods of time, four questions were given for disciples of Ruckman to consider. This part provides several more questions for those who have adopted or been influenced by Ruckman’s heresy on this issue.
5.) Does the idea that anyone at any time can be saved partially by works deny the depths of the sinfulness of the human heart? Isaiah, confessing what Israel will pray at the end of the Tribulation, affirms: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6). If even the “best” we can do is a filthy rag—is itself sinful—how can it help one to be saved? We deserve to go to hell for the “best” thing we have ever done, because of how our indwelling sin leads even our “best” actions to be tainted by sin. Does that not obliterate salvation by works at any time? If not, doesn’t it strongly impact how we preach the gospel even now? If Ruckman is right (God forbid), then we can’t tell sinners: “Salvation by works is hopeless and impossible!” but only can say, “Right now God has decided salvation is by faith in this time period, but salvation by works really is possible—the Catholic church is right when it teaches salvation by faith and works; it just puts that way of salvation in the wrong time period.” Isn’t that an attack on the gospel even now? Is it OK to make salvation by works possible, and salvation by faith alone to be a mere dispensational distinction like whether or not it is OK to eat bacon or lobster?
6.) Why are verses that allegedly teach different ways of salvation in different time periods taken out of context in a major way? For example, the Ruckmanite pamphlet referenced in part one claims that Revelation 14:12 proves salvation by faith and works in the Tribulation, but it does no such thing—it just proves that true faith will manifest itself in one’s life, a fact that is all over the Pauline epistles (Romans 2:6-7; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, etc.), all over 1 John, and all over the whole Old and New Testament. Why is there so much misinterpretation going on?
7.) Would salvation be by faith alone in the Messiah from the Fall until the Tribulation and then suddenly change? Wouldn’t we need very, very clear Biblical evidence for this—evidence that does not exist?
8.) If we accept Ruckman’s claim here:
This means that in the Tribulation, you can lose it! … the truth that I’m talking about right now—taught first in 1954—is unknown to Pre-Millennial scholars. (Ruckman, Peter. The Book of Revelation. Pensacola, 1982, p. 413)
Wouldn’t the gates of hell have prevailed against the church, contrary to Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 3:21? Was the church teaching lies about the gospel until 1954 when Ruckman came along to explain the truth?
9.) Shouldn’t anyone who teaches multiple ways of salvation stop calling himself a Baptist, since there are no Baptist confessions of faith from the first century until modern times that teach this idea? One thing that John Davis in his “Why have millions of people suddenly disappeared?” pamphlet and “Time for Truth!” website deserve commendation for is not having the name “Baptist” on his religious organization, but just “The Oaks Church.” That is honest. Someone who teaches ideas about salvation that have never been in any Baptist confession should not call himself or his religious organization a Baptist church. When will you stop confusing people by dishonestly claiming to be a Baptist, when you reject what Baptists believe?
10.) Ruckman makes many other incredible claims on things like aliens and the color of their blood to secret CIA alien breeding facilities that perhaps he is not credible. Furthermore, he says: “There are SIX ‘plans of salvation’ in the book of Acts” (Bible Believers’ Bulletin Jan. 2007, p. 16.” Does such an idea make Acts astonishingly confusing, instead of helping people understand God’s truth?
11.) Ruckman also wrote: “Paul does not hesitate to misapply Habbakuk 1:5-6, in the Church Age” (Ruckman, Peter. How to Teach Dispensational Truth. Pensacola: Bible Believers Press, 1992, 1996, p. 37), claiming that Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, misapplies Scripture. Such outlandish ideas permeate Ruckman’s teachings. If we follow Ruckman, are we not leading ourselves into incredible confusion, even apart from the fact that Ruckman’s life indicated that he was not qualified to pastor, based on 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1? (See, e. g., What About Ruckman? by David Cloud).
12.) Why do Ruckman’s writings have such a carnal, ungodly spirit, so that one feels defiled by just reading a few pages of them? I have never been able to read through any of his books cover to cover; when I tried I could not get past what seemed like regrettably carnal name-calling. What if Ruckman wrote in such a carnal way because he was himself a carnal man, not one who Christians should follow?
13.) Why do you use Romans 10:9-13 in gospel tracts, when Romans 10:9-10 is quoting Deuteronomy 30:14, and Romans 10:13 is quoting Joel 2:32? If Romans 10:9-13 proves salvation by grace through faith in this period of time, but not in other time periods, why does Paul quote Deuteronomy 30, from the Mosaic dispensation, and Joel 2:32, which is about the salvation of people in the Tribulation period? Is Paul misinterpreting the Old Testament, or is Ruckman misinterpreting the Bible?
14.) Romans 4:1-8 is one of the classic New Testament texts on justification by faith alone apart from works:s
Rom. 4:1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
Rom. 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
Rom. 4:3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Rom. 4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
Rom. 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Rom. 4:6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
Rom. 4:7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
Rom. 4:8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Paul proves the glorious truth that God justifies the ungodly apart from works by quoting Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 32:1-2, the experiences of Abraham and of David. If salvation were by works in Abraham’s day or in King David’s day, how could Paul quote Genesis 15 and Psalm 32 to prove exactly the opposite doctrine, and if there are different ways of salvation in different dispensations, why does Paul prove his doctrine of unmerited salvation from the way people in the patriarchal and legal dispensations were saved?
15.) If you cannot answer the questions above, are you willing to reject Ruckman and his false teaching about the existence of multiple ways of salvation?
Read part one on Peter Ruckman’s Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy by clicking here.
–TDR
Peter Ruckman: Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy part 1 of 2
You are out of town and are looking for a good church. After doing online research, you find one and visit. The church says “Baptist,” “independent.” They go soulwinning, telling people to repent and be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. They all have King James Bibles. They say nothing about Ruckman. They reject Jack Hyles’s anti-repentance heresies. They reject CCM, Contemporary “Christian” Music. They believe in eternal security but are not Calvinist. They dress modestly and believe in gender distinction. They reject the charismatic movement. They reject covenant theology and are dispensational, premillennial, and pretribulational. Truths such as the resurrection of Christ, the Trinity, etc. are, of course, all believed. The people are friendly and the pastor preaches with conviction and makes application. Everything looks great!
You go to the tract area to pick up some gospel tracts. The content seems fine for most of them. Then you find a pamphlet about the future. On one side it says: “Very soon millions of people shall suddenly disappear!” Everything that it says in that part sounds fine. But on the other side it says “Why have millions of people suddenly disappeared?” and in that section you are shocked when you discover statements that deny the gospel! In this section, which is addressed to people who miss the Rapture, appear statements such as: “Remember, to be saved you must put all your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and keep the commandments of God,” and “You can only enter [God’s] Kingdom if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and … by … keeping the commandments.” What is going on here?
You look at the pamphlet a bit more carefully. You notice within it a drawing of people going up in the Rapture; one of the graves with a person going up says “Peter Ruckman.” Hmm.
Then you see that it is published by one “John Davis” who runs a “Time for Truth!” website and helps lead “The Oaks Church.” You discover that these sectaries are significant publishers of Ruckmanite literature.
The church you thought was fine turned out to be one where Peter Ruckman’s heresy that there are different ways of salvation in different time periods is being believed and practiced, although they did not openly proclaim their Ruckmanism. That is bad. It is really bad. Such a church is not one to go back to unless they repent and renounce their heresy on the gospel. Multiple (alleged) ways of salvation is a false teaching to tolerate “not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you” (Galatians 2:5). Ecclesiastical separation is commanded by God (Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; Ephesians 5:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14).
Ruckman believed an eternally secure salvation by grace alone through faith alone is only for the church age; supposedly in past times for Israel and in future times such as the Tribulation period salvation is not by repentant faith alone, but by faith and works. What are some questions you can ask someone who believes or is being influenced by this heresy? Here are a few.
1.) Does the fact that Genesis 15:6 is referenced in Habakkuk 2:4, and these two verses are themselves referenced in James 2; Romans 4; Galatians 3; and Hebrews 10-11 show that justification has always been by faith alone, rather than by works? (The extremely powerful nature of this development of salvation by faith alone from the patriarchal times of Abraham, through the Mosaic dispensation, into the New Testament is developed in the study “The Just Shall Live by Faith”). Why does Paul prove his teaching of justification by faith alone with these kinds of Old Testament texts? Don’t these passages show that Abraham, Moses, Habakkuk, James, and Paul all taught the same human response was required to be saved—faith, and faith alone?
2.) For century after century the Jews were singing Psalms with many verses such as: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (Psalm 2:12). If salvation was ever by works in the Old Testament, why would God command them to sing that ALL who trust in God’s Son are blessed (not “some” are blessed, those who trust and also do enough works to be saved?) Is the Psalter deceiving Israel when it regularly teaches salvation by faith alone?
3.) Why does Peter testify that ALL God’s OT prophets witnessed to justification by faith alone in the Messiah? “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).
4.) Why is the Old Testament full of the truth of salvation by grace alone? (For example, the Sabbath teaches salvation by faith and resting from works, according to Paul in Hebrews 3-4, so from the very seventh day of creation God’s resting taught man: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9-10). One major reason working on the Sabbath deserved the death penalty was to teach Israel what a grave sin it was to seek to enter God’s salvation rest by effort instead of resting in Jehovah and His provided atonement alone. Likewise, Moses told Israel that their being chosen was sheer and totally undeserved grace (Deut 7:6-8); the very preface to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-2) indicates that Israel was to obey because they were already a redeemed people, not in order to merit salvation, just as believers today obey because they are already a redeemed people, not to merit salvation. There are many texts such as: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1-2); how? Through the Messiah, in the immediate context—Isaiah 52:13-53:12; 55:4.
Read part two on Peter Ruckman’s Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy by clicking here.
–TDR
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