Dispensationalism Tomorrow and Beyond

This Festschrift of twenty-three chapters is published in honor of Charles C. Ryrie. This reviewer along with many others benefited from the classroom instruction of Dr. Ryrie at Dallas Seminary years ago. And countless individuals have been helped by his many writings, especially on dispensationalism, and his Bible teaching ministry. His humble spirit, his clarity of instruction, and his commitment to God’s inerrant Word stand as a model for believers today.

This collection of essays, edited by the president of Tyndale Theological Seminary, includes chapters by sixteen authors, who represent classical dispensationalism. The book begins with a chapter by Ryrie on “The Necessity of Dispensationalism,” originally published in the July-September 1957 issue of Bibliotheca Sacra. Five other chapters are reprints of material originally published elsewhere. These are chapter 2, “Four Pillars of Dispensationalism,” by Christopher Cone; chapter 6, “The Principle of Single Meaning,” by Robert Thomas; chapter 8, “Dispensational Definition and Division Revisited,” by Cone; chapter 9, “The New Testament Use of the Old Testament,” by Thomas; chapter 22 on American policies in the Middle East, by Michael Stallard; and chapter 23 on the value of studying biblical prophecy, by Paul Benware.

Arnold Fructenbaum discusses the views of several theological systems on Israel's past, present, and future. These include covenant postmillennialism, covenant amillennialism, covenant premillennialism, and dispensationalism. Charles Ray has two excellent and exegetically detailed chapters on the dispensational interpretation of the seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24–27. The rapture in relation to the day of the Lord is discussed by David Olander. John Whitcomb suggests that the two witnesses in Revelation 11 will be Moses and Elijah and that they will minister in the first half of the Tribulation. Various views on Ezekiel’s temple are discussed by Jerry Hullinger. John Hart argues that freedom from the Law in Romans 7:6 refers to sanctification, not salvation.

Kevin Zuber discusses ajpavnthsi" in the phrase “to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) and correctly suggests that this word refers to the rapture and not to a “meeting” of believers to accompany the Lord to the earth at His second coming.

The chapters on American policies in the Middle East, on emergent theology, and on the church and social responsibility may seem at first glance to be unusual topics for a book on dispensationalism, but they are in fact appropriate. It is a pleasure to commend this book that honors a beloved professor and defends an essential aspect of biblical interpretation.