Dispensationalism originated in the nineteenth century in the teaching of the Anglican JOHN NELSON DARBY (1800–1882) (see ANGLICANISM). Darby rejected the organized church as apostate, leading him to become part of a separatist group that later became known as the PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. Darby adopted a futurist premillennial eschatology, rejecting the historicist approach popular among British millennialists (see MILLENARIANS AND MILLENMALISM) of his era. Central to Darby’s hermeneutics was an anthropological dualism. In his view the true church is a heavenly people, an invisible group with heavenly citizenship, promises, and prophecies. Israel, on the other hand, is God’s earthly people. All of the biblical prophecies to Israel will be fulfilled on the earth in the millennium and the eternal state. The church inherits spiritual blessings and her eternal destiny is in heaven. These two peoples never commingle. A strict separation of these two peoples of God must be maintained when interpreting promises and prophecies in Scripture. The future eschatological plan of God has both an earthly and a heavenly component.
Darby developed two distinctive doctrines related to this heavenly people. He proposed that the church age was a parenthesis between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of Daniel 9:25–27. This period of time was a mystery, not revealed in Scripture before the coming of the Messiah. The seventieth week of Daniel, the Great Tribulation, was prophesied for God’s earthly people (Israel), and has not yet been fulfilled. Because the wrath of God will be poured out on the earth during this time, God’s heavenly people will be taken away, or raptured, before this seven-year period. Darby based his doctrine of the RAPTURE of the church before this period of tribulation on I Thessalonians 4:15–18. With the heavenly people removed from the earth, God’s judgment is then unleashed on Israel and unbelieving Gentiles (see Revelation 6–19).
In Darby’s view, God’s promises to his earthly people, Israel, would then be fulfilled in a millennial kingdom. Although they had rejected their Messiah in his first coming, Israel would turn to him in faith during the Great Tribulation. The Messiah will destroy all of his enemies and rule over the world from the Davidic throne in Jerusalem for one thousand years (Revelation 20:1–6). After one last rebellion is quashed, a new heaven and earth are created, the former the eternal home of the church and the latter the realm of Israel.
Dispensationalism spread to North America through a series of Bible and prophecy conferences in the late nineteenth century. The most prominent of these was the Niagara Conference (1883–1897). Darby himself made several trips to America to speak at these gatherings. Through the teaching of J.H.Brookes, A.J. Gordon, and C.I.Scofield, this teaching took on a distinctive American flair. American dispensationalists generally rejected Darby’s view of the organized church as apostate and focused on purifying or reviving their denominations.
This period of dispensationalism’s history has been designated by historians of the tradition as the classic stage. These dispensationalists maintained Darby’s anthropological dualism and his futurist ESCHATOLOGY. The failure of WILLIAM MILLER’S date-setting (1844) clearly demonstrated to them the danger of historicism. Further, dispensationalists claimed that their theology was based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. Fundamentalist in their theology, representatives of many denominations were found in their ranks, including Presbyterians and Congregationalists (see FUNDAMENTALISM; PRESBYTERIANISM, CONGREGATIONALISM). Later, BAPTISTS and nondenominational churches were represented as well.
The major teachings of this classic stage of American dispensationalism were systematized in the SCOFIELD REFERENCE BIBLE. C.I.Scofield, a prominent spokesman in the tradition, published a King James Version of the Bible (Oxford University Press) with copious notes explaining his interpretation of much of the biblical text in successive editions in 1909 and 1917 (see BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION). Although not all dispensationalists agreed with every one of his interpretations, Scofield’s system became the major articulation of the tradition. The influence of the Scofield Reference Bible is so pervasive that in popular understanding, his sevenfold scheme of history is often assumed to be the essential statement of dispensationalism.
Scofield’s disciple, L.S.Chafer, founded the Evangelical Theological College in Dallas, Texas in 1924. This institution was renamed Dallas Theological Seminary in 1936 and Chafer served as its president until his death in 1952. Chafer’s eight-volume Systematic Theology (1948) is the most developed articulation of classic dispensationalism.
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