Dr. R.C. Sproul on 'Reformed view of Dispensationalism'

Dr. R.C. Sproul gave a brief answer to the specific question "What's the difference between the Reformed doctrine and Dispensationalism.

This QA was is from the "R.C. Sproul: Questions and Answers #1" from the Ligonier Ministries channel.

Take note that the answer is in a short time constraint and may have explained it further for better understanding. Go to the "Ligonier Ministries" youtube channel and check out more from Dr. R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries; Subscribe to their channel!

[DaveSandersCCC]

I have benefited in so many ways from Dr. Sproul's teachings! But as someone who would be regarded as a dispensationalist, I can say I have never heard a single dispensationalist ever claim that a person can be saved and not changed, or have any "moral change in his life." The category of "carnal Christian" is not, according to any dispensationalist I have ever read and heard, one where there has never been a surrender to Jesus' Lordship nor a change in a person's life. Whatever differences there are between reformed and covenant theology, the transformation of the saved is not one of them!

[kellyrhoads]

I went to a dispensation college and the Dallas theological seminary, although the classical dispensationalists had all died. No one I knew thought there couldn't be any evidence. They took the phrase "you shall know them by their fruits", "work out your salvation, for He works in you" quite literally.

I did grow up in a very rural southern Baptist church and I am sure no one knew what dispensationalism was. They, of course, believed in the altar call Salvations with little to no evidence.

But the ones studying theology at a higher level didn't subscribe to that.

[alexvieyraa]

As a Dispensationalist I’m so happy for everything that both theology’s teach regarding to different small points of view, I think we are learning and growing according to his will, and one day we will see him as ho he is and if we get united we can do great things. I think God uses both to bring people to salvation, we stand still in our beliefs and with his power we will remain true.
We honor God and help people to have a better understanding of who God is, the understanding of scripture and Jesuschrist as lord and savior.

Ps. So thankful for the United States that brought missionary’s to my country and me and a lot of people know we can enjoy him. I encourage y’all to keep perusing him and make him known in the nations.

[NateStrikesAgain]

I grew up with dispensationalists and never heard anyone make the claim that someone can be saved and not changed, ever. Quite the opposite actually.

[miguelramos]

What about the process of sanctification?

[SpotterVideo]

Who is really teaching “Replacement Theology” ?
(Did God fulfill His promises to the Jewish people at Calvary? Matthew 26:28, John 19:30)

The advocates of modern Dispensational Theology often accuse others of promoting “Replacement Theology”, or some may even say “Antisemitism”. What does the Bible say about their accusations?

1. Who is replacing Christ as the seed of Abraham through which all the families of the Earth would be blessed in Genesis 12:3, with Abraham’s modern descendants? (See Galatians 3:8)

2. Who is replacing the one people of God in John 10:16, with two peoples of God ?

3. Who is replacing the one seed (Christ) in Galatians 3:16, with the many seeds?

4. Who is replacing the children of the promise in Romans 9:8, with the children of the flesh?

5. Who is replacing the faithful “remnant” of Israelites in Romans 11:1-5, with the Baal worshipers?

6. Who is replacing the word "so" in Romans 11:26, with the word "then"?

7. Who is attempting to replace the Church made up of all races of people, with one made up only of Gentiles? Why did Peter address the crowd as “all the house of Israel” in Acts 2:36, when about 3, 000 Israelites accepted Christ on the Day of Pentecost?

8. Based on Hebrews 9:15, the New Covenant cannot be separated from the Messiah’s death. Is the covenant in Daniel 9:27 connected to the Messiah’s death in Daniel 9:26. Is the covenant with the “many” in Daniel 9:27 the same covenant with the “many” in Matthew 26:28? If it is, some have replaced the New Covenant in Daniel 9:27 with a future covenant made by an antichrist not found in Daniel chapter 9. (See the 1599 Geneva Bible used by the Pilgrims.)

9. Those promoting the Two Peoples of God doctrine of Dispensational Theology often accuse others of teaching “Replacement Theology”, but are they the masters of it? Are they promoting a form of Dual Covenant Theology based on race? (See “genealogies” in Titus 3:9) Is the most important genealogy in the Bible found in Matthew 1:1? Is God's Son the ultimate fulfillment of Israel? Why has the modern Church done a pitiful job of sharing the Gospel with modern Orthodox Jews? Why would someone tell them they are God's chosen people and then fail to share the Gospel with them? Who is the seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15? Who is the "son" in Psalm 2? Who is the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53? Who would fulfill the New Covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34? Who would fulfill the timeline of Daniel chapter 9 before the second temple was destroyed? Why have we not heard this simple Old Testament Gospel preached on Christian television in the United States on a regular basis?


10. Watch the YouTube video “Genesis of Dispensational Theology” to see the origin of this man-made doctrine, which is less than 200 years old. It was brought to the United States about the time of the Civil War by John Nelson Darby. The doctrine was later incorporated into the notes of the Scofield Reference Bible, and then spread through much of the modern Church.


Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas Texas was created in part to promote John Darby’s Two Peoples of God doctrine of Dispensational Theology.
Lewis Sperry Chafer, the first president of Dallas Theological, had the following to say about the difference between Israel and the Church:

“The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity.”
Lewis Sperry Chafer, Dispensationalism (Dallas, Seminary Press, 1936), p. 107.

Chafer states that, ‘Israel is an eternal nation, heir to an eternal land, with an eternal kingdom, on which David rules from an eternal throne, ’ that is, on earth and distinct from the church who will be in heaven.”
Lewis Sperry Chafer. Systematic Theology. 1975. Vol. IV. pp. 315-323.

John Walvoord, another prominent voice of Dallas Theological stated…

"...it is an article of normative dispensational belief that the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham and his descendants from the Nile to the Euphrates will be literally instituted and that Jesus Christ will return to a literal and theocratic Jewish kingdom centred on a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. In such a scheme the Church on earth is relegated to the status of a parenthesis.”
John F. Walvoord, The Rapture Question.1979, p. 25

Are there two peoples of God in John 10:16? (See also 1 John 2:22-23, 2 John 1:7-11.)
What is the land promise to the Old Testament Saints in Hebrews 11:15-16?
Based on 2 Peter 3:10-13, is this earth “eternal”? Will it be replaced by a new earth?
Based on Acts 2:36, and Romans 9:6-8, and Romans 11:1-5, and Hebrews 12:22-24, and James 1:1-3, can faithful Israel and the Church be separated into two different groups?
Who is the New Covenant promised to in Jeremiah 31:31-34, and Hebrews 8:6-13?
Will modern Orthodox Jews ever be saved outside of the New Covenant Church?

[MO-bodu]

He was a charitable guy from most content I've seen, so I'm going to return the favor and just assume this was poorly worded somehow. Obviously dispensationalists don't believe what he's suggesting.

[mitchellc]

The gospel is the gospel of the kingdom!

Jesus is going to return and set up the kingdom of God ON THE EARTH! God’s government ON THE EARTH! The Messiah died for his people! God resurrected the Messiah! The Messiah will resurrect his people! The destiny of the Messiah and his people is to be ON THE EARTH! The renewed restored earth! God also dwelling with them! Rev 21

Matt 24
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Jesus said the Father is the only true God!

John 17
3 And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

[andresisrael]

How do you explain Zechariah 8:23 Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

[brandonvonbo]

Reformed guys tend not to be dispensationalists, but rather hold to theology.

[aprilholton]

I thought that was obvious, when the Holy Spirit regenerates someone there IS a change in their life! If not, I don't believe they have been I have never heard someone claiming this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[savedbygrace]

He misunderstood dispensationalism. It doesn’t have multiple ways of salvation in each dispensation.

[RevReads]

This belief of there are no carnal Christians runs against the entire book of Corinthians. The whole book is confronting sanctified Christians who are living like the world and Paul says at times worse. He also had little to no understanding of what separates reformed theology from Dispensationalism. It's all about hermeneutics. We read the Bible in context. Sproul reads his theology into the Bible.

[TheOneTheyCallRyYan]

I love RC but agree that this was not accurate. Some folks do hold to what he said, but that does not pertain primarily to dispensationalism. It is another matter.

[jessedhakal]

Shocking to say the least from someone like RC. Just as there are many in other schools of thought that dont embrace the reformed doctrine of soteriology, there are many in dispensationalist circles.
There is no dispensationalist doctrine because it is not a theology, it is a hermeneutic, and deals primarily with eschatology. I hold to 5 points of Calvinism, i am reformed in my soteriology and yet fully dispensationalist in my eschatology.

[John-vtxr]

All respect to Sproul… but a simple fact check will show that he is misleading others in what dispensationalism is or simply doesn’t know or understand what it is. He states that Dispensationalism teaches that a person can be saved without being changed. Not so. Read the Romans ch 1 footnotes in the Scofield Bible.

[changedman]

I am a dispensationalist and I don't agree with the issues that Dr. Sproul brought up. I believe in Limited Atonement, lordship salvation, and that true salvation results in a changed life. Sadly many in the Reformed camp when they think of dispensationalism, they think of a strand of it that Dr. Sproul talked about, but that is not all dispensationalists. I am of the variety that Dr. MacArthur teaches and I think it is thoroughly biblical, because its based on a consistent literal/normal interpretation of all of Scripture. Sadly, I believe that my covenantal friends pick and choose what they want to be spiritual and what they want to be physical/literal.

[hereticus]

“If someone claims they just got saved but don’t visit my tailor and get my exact suit and tie the very next day, well, don’t waste my time; they aren’t saved. Only people just like me are saved.”

[makarov]

DISPENSATIONAL DELUSION'S RESULTS

It amazes me, that while most dispensational preachers understand that the events foretold to occur in MT 23 and 24 center around, and come to completion, at the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70ad; then have the misguided fortitude to suddenly jump 2000 years into the future when Jesus includes his coming and the gathering right there within the very same texts! And it expressed as being IMMEDIATELY after the events in the previous verses!

Because of the rise of Dispensationalism in the Church in the early 1900s, with its futuristic perspective of the New Testament prophecies; are we supposed to accept their premise that the first century believers, all the New Testament writers, the Holy Spirit, Jesus the Christ Himself, AND even God the Father, ALL got it completely and totally wrong, as to the timing and nature of the events foretold in holy writ? Especially when they ALL held to the perspective that their fulfillment was to be in that first century? Well, I am not persuaded by spiritual blindness!

All of the New Testament writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote their texts to their first century readers, prophesying that the resurrection and the coming of the Lord were to occur in that generation then living and breathing at that time. There was no confusion or misunderstanding on the matter! Now, here is what we MUST conclude: Either the resurrection and the coming of the Lord did happen when and how they said it would; or God just flat out lied to them!

And if God did lie; what else might he have lied about? And can you really trust the bible which you don't believe is actually true and accurate, since you don't believe those prophecies have happened? Do you see how your believing that the bible, with its prophecies, are both true and accurate is the paramount of your faith? You must choose one way or the other! God requires that you believe what he has preserved.

[matthewlogan]

Great to hear disparaging talk about dispensationalism from those who teach salvation by works.