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Primer on Dispensationalism

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This little book is a must read for anyone concerned with the condition of today's evangelical churches and how they got to be in the sorry state they are in. Dr. Gerstner places the blame squarely on the advent of dispensationalism and the antinomianism that is taught along side it.

This book is not for everyone but, for those of you who know you are being taught dispensationalism and sense that something about the teaching just isn't right, like the rapture, this book is a must read.

If you are unable to secure a copy of, "Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth", by Dr. Gerstner, this little primer is the next best thing. I urge anyone who is interested in the truth about the Truth to read this book and to share it with your church families. Hiding behind bad doctrine, wrong interpretation and worse eschatology does nothing to glorify God and ultimately, that is the reason His church has been become such a hypocritical mess that is indistinguishable from the world.

Get multiple copies and share them with those who love the Lord's word. His word says the Truth shall set you free and the false teaching of dispensationalism and the arrogant antinomianism that results are not the Truth and are the reason so many in the church today are still in bondage to their sin.

John Gerstner (1914-1996) was a Professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. He later (1991) wrote a much longer critique of dispensationalism (Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism (Second Edition), but this shorter piece has its usefulness.

He begins this 1982 book by saying, "I owe my salvation, under God, to a dispensationalist... My gratitude to that teacher, and to the whole dispensational school of theology which he represented, will linger with me through eternity. Nevertheless, I believe the theology of dispensationalism, though intending evangelicalism, is a serious deviation from biblical doctrine and even threatens its own evangelicalism. This primer will show the truth of that heavy charge."

Here are some quotations from the booklet:

"Radical scholars divide the Old Testament into different and conflicting documents with varying theologies. Dispensationalists do not go about their job in quite the same way, but they end up with very similar results. Just as there are radical radicals who split the biblical documents to smithereens, so there are ultra-dispensationalists who do the same." (Pg. 3)
"The vast proportion of Scripture is either obviously literal or obviously figurative, both sides admit. Only in a relatively few disputed areas does the question arise whether Scripture is to be taken literally or figuratively. We do not accuse dispensationalists of being absolute literalists, nor should they accuse us of being absolute spiritualizers." (Pg. 4)
"Dispensationalism is not, as it usually claims to be, Calvinistic or Reformed. This is an extremely serious fault inasmuch as the teaching of the Bible, we believe, is Reformed throughout." (Pg. 15)
"(T)he way dispensationalists conceive of the Old Testament believers is drastically different from the biblical way. According to dispensationalists, the Old Testament people are saved by believing in the coming of Christ while, in the biblical view, the Old Testament people are saved by believing in the Christ who is coming. In dispensationalism, a person is saved by anticipation; in the biblical system, a person is saved by Christ." (Pg. 28)
"Dispensationalism divides rather than preserves the unity of the Bible. It divides the people of God. It divides predestination from the people of God. It divides salvation from the people of God. It divides the people of God into the endless future. These things are incompatible with a sound interpretation of the Bible." (Pg. 35)

ead book and thirsted for more from the late Dr. Gerstner, and was fortunate to find a series of talks he did on the book from a church back in the early 80's posted online for free download.

Very informative. This is something all christians need to read and understand, because the popular mass media buys into dispensationalism hook line and sinker without ever considering the full ramifications of the failed hermeneutics used to come up with this system of interpreting the bible. It could not be more obviously in error once you follow it's logic all the way through.

I was raised dispensational but never had it fully explained to me, mainly because most dispensationalists that I knew didn't have a real grasp of it in the first place. They were taught it just like me but never examined it thoroughly either. It's one of those deals where respectable people and authorities all believe something because everybody else believes it, but nobody realy knows much about it. The emperor's new clothes is more like it.

I further read other theologians takes on it and I can now say I fully understand dispensationalism, and I fully dis-avow it now as well, thanks to excellent covering of the subject by Dr. Gerstner, as well as others such as John Greer, Stuart Olyott, Malcolm Smith, Dick Lucas and a whole bunch of other good teachers.

This book is too short to be all that useful in my opinion. Although he does cover a decent amount of information, I don't think he really backed up many of his key charges against dispensationalism.

He also spends too much time on tangential points. For example, he spends quite awhile arguing that it's inconsistent with Calvinism. I may be being obtuse, but I couldn't quite see his point here and don't think he really pointed out anything that would make dispensationalism inherently contradict Calvinism. This argument also assumes that the reader thinks being inconsistent with Calvinism is a bad thing (what if the reader's not a Calvinist though?). Although this is certainly an interesting point that I would have liked to have seen developed more (I will have to study it further myself), I think there are more serious and more fundamental flaws that can be pointed to.

He does point to some of the more serious, fundamental flaws though - for example, the fact that dispensationalism has some rather disturbing implications about soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). If held consistently, dispensationalists must hold that there are two ways of salvation - one during the Old Testament and one during the New Testament. In fact, I still remember being taught that when I was still a dispensationalist, and I'm ashamed to admit it took me a long time to realize that people were saved by grace through faith in the Old Testament too.

There were a few glaring omissions in this book. For example, he doesn't spend much time (if any) talking about dispensational eschatology, which is a pretty significant topic that's worthy of a book-length critique in itself (there are actually quite a few; a few good ones that leap to mind include "Last Days Madness" by Gary Demar and "The Apocalypse Code" by Hank Hanegraaff; I'm also currently reading "Rapture Fever" by Gary North and it's good so far).

This book is alright as a place to start I guess, particularly if you're already familiar with dispensationalism, but I would recommend looking to longer critiques to deal with these issues in more depth. In fairness, I guess there's a limit to how much you can discuss in 35 pages, so I guess my complaint isn't that this book is badly written as much as it's just too short. It also assumes some background knowledge of dispensationalism.

In typical Gerstner fashion, John has given us his years of insight into a system of theology based on an incorrect hermeneutic, Dispensationalism's one dimensional literalism. I know, I used to be an Evangelical Free Church pastor. Gerstner has pegged this system correctly & should be commended for his Scriptural truthfulness & honesty. This booklet stands on its own merits. Great job.