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Dr. Mike Stallard, mstallard@bbc.edu
Dispensational Study Group
Baptist Bible Seminary, faculty.bbc.edu/mstallard
Evangelical Theological Society
Toronto, November 2002
2
Lewis Sperry Chafer), with its focus on a single New Covenant for Israel with blessings accruing
to the Church by virtue of its union with Christ, can provide a way to explain the Church's
experience of the Spirit without harming the unity of the national focus of the Old Testament
texts about the New Covenant.
2
I do not think that John's understanding in the main is far
removed from such thinking.
In addition, I find myself in substantial agreement with John's skepticism concerning
New Testament dependence upon extra-biblical first-century techniques for reading the Old
Testament. The view that New Testament authors show reliance upon so-called Second Temple
hermeneutics has not been addressed much by traditional dispensationalists.
3
Those traditional
dispensationalists like myself who fear that such a view could turn out to be only a temporary fad
in current academic studies need to do our homework and engage in the debate in a more serious
way. It is one thing to assert one's skepticism. It is quite another to put energy into the necessary
exegetical and historical work.
On the other side of this debate, I would like for progressive dispensationalists to think
through and communicate clearly what it means for the Church practically to believe that the NT
human authors are doing midrash when using some OT texts.
4
How does such a notion change
how I might teach Sunday School? How does it change how I teach people in my local church to
read the Bible if the Church at large has indeed misread the Bible for almost two thousand years?
Do I have to teach laypersons to discern elements of midrashic techniques? In other words, this
is not merely an academic question. Its pragmatic significance may be highlighted even more
when we remember that dispensationalism was born as a movement within the churches and not
the academy. Its success has been partly, if not mostly, because it appeared to give the Bible
back to the common man even more than the Reformation had claimed to do. I would like
something in print to help me sort out this side of the issue.
2
The desire to discuss NT fulfillment in such a way so as not to damage or unravel OT exegesis is a
concern of all dispensationalists. We often state that God can add to his promises but he cannot do less than he
promised. Traditional dispensationalists are known for emphasizing (some progressives might say overemphasizing)
the need to consider the OT text when working in NT passages that use OT texts. This concern is why I prefer to
make a sharp distinction between exegetical meaning in the OT text and theological conclusions that draw from
several sources. Oftentimes our recent discussions in the area of hermeneutics have become somewhat vague, in my
judgment, by blurring this distinction too readily so that we talk of NT texts as if they give the "meaning" of the OT
text.
3
Herbert W. Bateman, ed., Three Central Issues in Contemporary Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids:
Kregel, 1999), 40-41. Bateman contrasts Elliott Johnson and Darrell Bock on this point. I do not know why
traditional dispensationalists have shown little interest in studying this challenge to their way of thinking. As a
systematic theologian, it is somewhat removed from my main field of study. I really think that a book-level study of
this issue needs to be presented by traditional dispensationalists with NT exegetes in the lead.
4
I am not arguing for a complete absence of any midrashic elements in the Bible any more than I would
argue that Paul never quotes Greek poets in Acts 17. I would not see the quoting of Greek poets as evidence of the
need to Hellenize Paul methodologically as I read his letters. In the same way, when I see midrashic elements in the
NT text, I do not see that as reason to accept Second Temple hermeneutics as a major interpretive tool. It may be a
simple matter of disagreement over exegesis. It could also be a matter of degree and not kind, although
traditionalists generally fear this approach as an example of parallelomania. However, some traditional
dispensationalists agree with progressives about elements of pesher in the Bible in such passages as Acts 2:16 (the
introductory phrase this is that). See Zane Hodges, "A Dispensational Understanding of Acts 2" in Issues in
Dispensationalism edited by Wesley Willis and John Master (Chicago: Moody, 1994), 168 and Elliott Johnson, "
Covenants in Traditional Dispensationalism" in Three Central Issues in Contemporary Dispensationalism edited
by Herb Bateman (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 151ff.