The term "dispensational truth" has become so encrusted with theories and false assumptions that it is now absolutely necessary to discard it if we want to recover a clear Scriptural understanding of the matters with which it is supposed to deal.
This unfortunately creates a verbal gap which is very difficult to fill. We have got to purge away from our minds the false linkage to time. For the present moment the Evangel of the Uncircumcision is in force and all who receive it become members of the church which is Christ's body. At some moment to come, the body will be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and it will cease to exist on earth, and with it the Evangel of. the Uncircumcision will cease to exist also. That seems to locate it within a framework of time. So it must, because everything that happens is, in the very nature of things, located within a framework of time. But as regard s the body, that is all, so far as time boundaries go. We have no right whatever to assume that during the closing days of the present "economy" the Evangel of the Circumcision will not again, quite properly, be proclaimed to the Circumcision. There was a period during the time covered by Acts when both evangels, incompatible though they are, were being proclaimed simultaneously, though naturally not to the same people. Why should we assume that this state of transition will not occur again? Here we must tread care fully. Whether, in fact, the two evangels are now in operation simultaneously, or ever will be again, is another question, right outside the present theme. All I maintain, here, is that we must not assume this to be impossible and build up dispensational systems upon this and similar assumptions.
Another blessed gain from getting rid of all time-bound economies is that we are freed to enjoy all the Scriptures so far as they are applicable to ourselves. We need no longer say that Paul's epistles alone belong to this economy, and that it is therefore an anachronism to read the other Greek Scriptures as if they had any present application at all. Provided we bear constantly in mind that they belong primarily to an evangel which is other than ours and incompatible with it, and that we must therefore continually measure them against our Evangel of the Uncircumcision; we may apply them to our selves with safety and, what is more, with profit. Take for example an extreme case, Matt. 5 :5. Its primary meaning is fixed, not by its being in Matthew's Gospel, but by the fact that it is concerned with the land or the earth. Thus, as the C.V. note puts it, "there is no happiness in this beatitude for us." Quite so; but there is no need to be dispensational about it. We can understand it without artificial theories. Nor is there any need to "write it off" for the present time. Its basic principle is a perpetual reminder that we are living in an abnormal world-order, and further that what is true morally for those who are to enjoy the tenancy of the earth is all the more true for those whose calling is celestial. So the Apostle Paul enjoins on us meekness (Gal. 5:23; 6:1; Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:12; 2 Tim. 2:25; Tit. 3:2); and twice as often as the Twelve (James 1:21, 3:13; 1 Pet. 3:16). This speaks for itself!
R. B. Withers
