Dispensationalism is a method of Bible interpretation which was first devised by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), and later formulated by the controversial American Cyrus Ingerson Scofield [sometimes referred to as CyrusIngersoll Scofield] (1843-1921), and is also known as Pre-millennial Dispensationalism. Although Darby was not the first person to suggest such a theory, he was, however, the first to develop it as a system of Bible interpretation and is, therefore, regarded as the Father of Dispensationalism.
The origin of this theory can be traced to three Jesuit priests; (1) Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), (2) Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) one of the best known Jesuit apologists, who promoted similar theories to Ribera in his published work between 1581 and 1593 entitled Polemic Lectures Concerning the Disputed Points of the Christian Belief Against the Heretics of This Time, and (3) Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801). The writings of Ribera and Bellarmine, which contain the precedence upon which the theory of Dispensationalism is founded, were originally written to counteract the Protestant reformers’ interpretation of the Book of the Revelation which, according to the reformers, exposed the Pope as Antichrist and the Roman Catholic Church as the whore of Babylon.
Ribera’s theory lay dormant until it was revisited by Lacunza, and Lacunza’s work the Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty (Vol.I, Vol.II.), was translated into English by Edward Irving (1792–1834) in 1827. However, Irving was not aware that the author of this work was not the converted Jewish Rabbi he pretended to be, but a Roman Catholic imposter, and a Jesuit at that! Irving was duped into believing that Lacunza was a converted Jewish Rabbi named Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, and he was taken in by his anti-Protestant writings. It should be noted that J. N. Darby was also vehemently opposed to Protestantism and at one time, like his friend John Henry Newman, considered converting from Anglicanism to the Roman Church. Having been led astray by this Jesuit work, Irving completely rejected the historical orthodox Christian belief concerning the return of Jesus Christ; as the following extract from his introduction to his translation of Lacunza’s work clearly shows.
It was Irving’s own interest in prophecy which led him to the works of Manuel Lacunza, (who wrote using the false Jewish name of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra). Lacunza’s ideas were similar and probably based on the writings of the sixteenth century Jesuit, Francesco Ribera. Ribera was one of the Jesuits commissioned by the Pope to write a commentary on the book of Revelation that would hopefully counteract the anti-Catholic Protestant interpretation held at that time.
Accordingly, toward the close of the century of the Reformation, two of the most learned (Jesuit) doctors set themselves to the task, each endeavouring by different means to accomplish the same end, namely, that of diverting men’s minds from perceiving the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Antichrist in the papal system. The Jesuit Alcazar devoted himself to bring into prominence the preterist method of interpretation,…and thus endeavoured to show that the prophecies of Antichrist were fulfilled before the popes ever ruled in Rome, and therefore could not apply to the Papacy.
…It is a matter for deep regret that those who advocate the futurist system at the present day, Protestants as they are for the most part, are really playing into the hands of Rome, and helping to screen the Papacy from detection as the Antichrist.
Edward Irving’s prophetic views were themselves based largely on the theories of these Jesuit writers, especially upon their commentaries on The Revelation. This combined with the ideas of his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)**, appear to be the basis of Irving’s millennialism.
It is important also to note that Irving was also influenced by his friend Henry Drummond. The subject of “unfulfilled prophecy” was the main topic of interest and study at Drummond’s Albury Conferences, and particularly the study of Old Testament prophecy in relation to the book of The Revelation. It was at these gatherings that the concept of God’s unfulfilled promises to the Jews began to formulate.
It was Irving’s obsession with prophecy and his apparent misuse of the gifts of the Spirit, which lead to his excommunication from the Church of Scotland in 1830. His book on the Humanity of Jesus Christ caused a great deal of offence to church leaders. It was this book that led to him being declared unfit to remain a minister of the Church of Scotland. In 1832, after his dismissal from his ministerial position, Irving founded his own church – the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. In March 1833 he was deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland on the charge of heresy. Irving died the following year.
Concerning the Brethren understanding of the person of Jesus Christ, F. F. Bruce says that there are “imbalances that need to be corrected in Brethren tradition,” and traces the problem directly to Irving himself.
“..a weakness on the doctrine of our Lord’s humanity, verging at times on Docetism, has been endemic in certain phases of the Brethren movement. The reason for this is that, almost at the outset of the movement, Brethren found themselves involved in debates on the Person of Christ of a kind which, more especially among the rank and file, caused any emphasis on His normal manhood to be almost suspect.
F. F. Bruce. “The Humanity of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship. 1973.
Whether Irving’s dismissal from the ministry prompted Darby to separate from the Church of Ireland the same year is not clear, but it was during the 1832 Powerscourt Conference held in Co. Wicklow, that he first described his discovery of a “secret rapture.” According to several authorities the concept of a secret rapture was the substance of a prophecy given by a girl belonging to one of Irving’s groups.
However, a study of the published prophecy does not give this impression. Rather, the message conveys the need for the Lord’s people to be ready for His return by living in holiness and the fullness of the Spirit. There is NO reference whatever to a secret rapture.
However, despite of the efforts of Jesuits like Ribera and others, It took another two and a half centuries before this Jesuit deception was accepted within the walls Evangelical Churches.
(i) A Chilean Jesuit priest, Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book entitled ‘The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty’, and in its pages taught the novel notion that Christ returns not once, but twice, and at the ‘first stage’ of His return He ‘raptures’ His Church so they can escape the reign of the ‘future antichrist’. In order to avoid any taint of Romanism, Lacunza published his book under the assumed name of Rabbi Ben Ezra, a supposedly converted Jew. Lacunza’s book found its way to the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there in 1826 Dr Maitland, the Archbishop’s librarian came upon it and read it and soon after began to issue a series of pamphlets giving the Jesuit, Futurist view of prophecy. The idea soon found acceptance in the Anglo-Catholic Ritualist movement in the National Church of England, and soon it tainted the very heart of Protestantism.
(ii) The Secret Rapture doctrine was given a second door of entrance at this time by the ministry of one, Edward Irving, founder of the so-called ‘Catholic Apostolic Church’. It was in Irving’s London church, in 1830, that a young girl named Margaret McDonald gave an ecstatic prophecy in which she claimed there would be a special secret coming of the Lord to ‘rapture’ those awaiting His return. From then until his death in 1834 Irving devoted his considerable talent as a preacher to spreading the theory of the ‘secret rapture’.
(iii) However, it was necessary for Jesuitry to have a third door of entrance to the Reformed fold and this they gained via a sincere Christian, J. N. Darby, generally regarded as the founder of the ‘Brethren’. As an Anglican curate Darby attended a number of mysteriously organised meetings on Bible Prophecy at Powerscourt in Ireland, and at these gatherings he learned about the ‘secret rapture’. He carried the teaching into the Brethren and hence into the heart of Evangelicalism. With a new veneer of being scriptural the teaching spread and was later popularised in the notes of the Schofield Reference Bible.
J. N. Darby, influenced by Edward Irving and followed by C. I. Scofield and the early dispensationalists such as Lewis S. Chafer and Charles Ryrie, held to this position. Ryrie describes pre-tribulationism as ‘normative dispensational eschatology’ and ‘a regular feature of classic dispensational premillennialism’. Pre-tribulationist premillennialists believe that Jesus Christ will return in the air to secretly ‘rapture’ true believers before the Tribulation begins on earth. After seven years of tribulation, Christ will return with His saints to overcome the Antichrist and his forces and establish God’s millennial kingdom on earth.
Although Arnold Dallimore, in his biography of Irving (The Life of Edward Irving. Banner of Truth Trust. 1983), makes no reference to Darby’s direct association with Irving, one of Darby’s biographers does. William Kelly, in referring to his and Darby’s companions says, “For in brighter days did not Edward Irving call it a “swamp of love”, when his own mind was carried away by pretensions to miraculous power, and to a ritual beyond the Ritualists?” F. F. Bruce also links Irving to Darby through Lady Powerscourt. Irving was a “leading participant in the Albury Park conferences (1826-30) and visited Lady Powerscourt at Powerscourt Castle in September 1830”, the same year as he published his work on The Orthodoxand Catholic Doctrine of our Lord’s Human Nature. [Bruce. op. cit.]. Darby attended at least one of the conferences on prophecy held at Powerscourt Castle and may well have met Irving there at the time. Another biographer, Max S. Weremchuk, who we will now quote from extensively, refers to Darby actually quoting Irving in his own writings.
In 1834 Wolff “travelled in Great Britain and Ireland on behalf of the London Society in company with its secretary. Never was there a more ill-matched pair. Wolff was always determined to speak about the Millennium and the restoration of the Jews, while the secretary maintained that he should devote his attention to the doctrine of the justification by faith. The ladies at Carisle who supported the Society sent a request to Wolff through the secretary that he should speak on the latter subject only. Wolff proved adamant. ‘If I come,’ he said, ‘I shall want to convert them to my views, not that they should convert me to theirs.’ ” (p. 192).
It should be noted here that Wolff was at one time A Roman Catholic and that Darby had several Roman Catholic acquaintances, like John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman) and Charles Butler (see below). This same author clearly connects Darby with Catholicism and this helps us understand Darby’s acceptance of Roman Catholic literature and teachings.
The Catholic influence may go further than suspected. Who did Darby converse with during his Catholic phase? How much teaching did he hear? These questions become important for the development of Darby’s prophetic views later. There are very many Catholic (Jesuit) elements involved in it. Darby’s view is not Ribera’s, nor Bellarmine’s, or Lacunza’s, but there are just too many corresponding elements when compared with each other that “chance” does not seem to be an honest explanation.
All the “elements” were there in the 1820s and 1830s: the concept of ruin, of dispensations, of a Israel/Church distinction, of a rapture (even though only a 45 day gap, but nevertheless, a gap), the days as days and not years in Daniel – and so on. It was all there. Darby just brought it all together in a way that seemed to be right.
J. N. Darby and the Plymouth Brethren were amongst the early Protestant exponents of this view. Their literal interpretation of Bible prophecy and their ideas on the timing of the rapture and the Lord’s Second Coming attracted them to this futurist system of interpretation.
In the early 19th. century there was a great spiritual vacuum in Britain and America. …people like J. N. Darby, Edward Irving and others also found in that spiritually starved generation a ready audience for their futuristic ideas. Ribera’s cunning has had its fruit in the publication of lots of extraordinary literature.
There can be very little doubt indeed that it was the teachings of Ribera and other Jesuits, through the influence of Irving and others of Darby’s friends, that led to Darby’s acceptance of the futurist interpretation of prophecy. When Darby first announced his conversion to these Jesuit teachings it brought immense opposition from within the movement he had helped to found, namely, the Brethren. His views also caused insurmountable theological problems for himself and for those who sided with him. He considered all those who would not acknowledge his adopted beliefs to be apostate, and he refused to fellowship with people who, up to that time, were his close Christian friends. This division resulted in a massive rift amongst the Plymouth Brethren and the founding of the Exclusive Brethren sect (Darby’s own followers).
His realising himself to be one in Christ brought real deliverance. But was not the resulting emphasis on the “spiritual” an escape hatch? Could not now all elements dealing with tradition and ritual – which had troubled him so much – be ignored and conveniently pushed into the sphere of “earthly Israel”?
Darby struggled many years to come to a conclusion which finally brought him peace. But then he went and made this a requirement of all other believers! This became the standard he used to judge the “true” spirituality and devotedness of other Christians!
When we look at the way Darby worked out his Dispensational theories, it is little wonder that anyone but the ignorant and gullibly could believe such things. This is how one of Darby’s associates, B. W. Newton, explains the matter.
When Darby came on the scene, in my first interview I asked him “Do you preach the Gospel to sinners as sinners and not merely as something for the elect?” And his answer satisfied me. For some while after I had met DeBurgh’s book on prophetic subjects, I lost sight of Darby: he was in Ireland. But when he came back I asked him about the Immediate Coming, and he would not decide either way. I argued with him that it couldn’t possibly be sinful to hope for the Lord’s return in the way that evidently Paul hoped for it — namely with intervening events — He wouldn’t decide.
At last Darby wrote from Cork saying he had discovered a method of reconciling the whole dispute, and would tell us when he came. When he did, it turned out to be the “Jewish interpretation.” The Gospel of Matthew was not teaching Church-Truth but Kingdom-Truth and so on. He explained it to me and I said “Darby, if you admit that distinction you virtually give up Christianity.” Well they kept on at that until they worked out the result as we know it. The “Secret Rapture” was bad enough but this was worse.
What is becoming more and more evident to me is that Darby had the tendency to present things as new (and sometimes as ‘his’) years after they had been presented by others. I have more examples of this from the field of prophecy, but apparently it is also the case in ecclesiastical matters.
in 1840 when back in 1825/26 Irving and after that many others were preaching and writing about the Lord’s soon coming to judge the Church and restore Israel. The idea that began to become popular back then was that judgment was coming – and coming soon – for an unfaithful Church.
Edward Synge might be an example. Darby worked with him at least as early as 1829. Edward Synge is described as having a: “new creed of biblical fundamentalism … equally distant from protestant and catholic. He expressed the opinion that being a member of any institutional church, whether protestant or catholic, was inconsequential in comparison to reading the bible”.
It has been impossible to discover more accurately what Synge’s views were (though a Synge descendant who is also working in this direction has been kind enough to remain in contact with me over the subject for some years now and we hope to progress).
The end result of Darby’s views on the Church and on prophecy may have carried his individual stamp, but they were definitely influenced and “supplied” by many others.
During the early nineteenth century America experienced a social-economic boom. On the back of this prosperity came the “Roaring Twenties”, which brought with it such deprivation and immorality as America had not known. The American Church took a stand against what it considered to be a turning away from God unto ungodliness, and openly preached against it. In fact there was a conscience reinforcement by the majority of conservative churches against this social looseness, and a denouncing of it from many pulpits and street preachers. This resulted in many churches withdrawing more narrowly from society and the formulation of a new kind of Christianity known as Fundamentalism.
Darby travelled to America on a number of occasions and taught his theories in several gatherings. One such being the church of Dr. Brookes, a Presbyterian minister. C. I. Scofield was, at that time, a student of Brookes’ Bible class and later took Darby’s teachings and published them in his own version of the Bible. Of this Bible, Albertus Pieters said, it is “one of the most dangerous books on the market.” To lean more about C. I. Scofield, his character and Reference Bible. please go >> here.
Darby taught that he had “Revived Precious Truth,” when in fact what he had done was revived the teaching of those who opposed truth.
It was within the ranks of these Fundamentalist church groups where Dispensationalism flourished and soon became confused with conservative Christianity. It was also during this period of American history that quite a large number of independent, trans-denominational religious movements, such as Mormonism, Millerism (from which the Jehovah’s Witnesses emerged), and the Seventh-day Adventists, were conceived; each proclaiming to be the only form of true Christianity [see footnote]. It wasn’t long before the Dispensationalist Fundamentalist groups were claiming the same and begin to despise those who, unlike themselves, had not received this “new light.” As Philip Mauro explains.
As with every new religious movement, the claim to supremacy is endemic. As we have already seen this was no different with Dispensationalism; John Nelson Darby considered those who did not agree with his novel theories to be apostate, separating from them and refusing to have any fellowship with them. Ironically it was those who rejected Darby’s teachings who had a Scriptural basis to refuse fellowship, not Darby. But the rejection of those who actually adhere to the truth is a mark of most sects and cults. C. I Scofield was to play a major part in the further separation of these American Fundamentalist groups.
Not a great deal has been written about Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, and it is not surprising when any research is made into his history and character. He is very well known as the author of the Scofield Reference Bible, but little else is known about him. It may surprise some to learn that Cyrus Scofield was a fraud and that his conversation to Christ is someone dubious. This is not based on any kind of prejudice against the man, but upon evidence that has resulted in researching Scofield’s background. The following is how one newspaper described him (although his name was misspelt) on appointment of his ministerial post in Texas.
“CYRUS I. SCHOFIELD, formerly of Kansas, late lawyer, politician and shyster generally has come to the surface again, and promises once more to gather around himself that halo of notoriety that has made him so prominent in the past. The last personal knowledge Kansans have had of this peer among scallywags was when about four years ago, after a series of forgeries and confidence games, he left the state and a destitute family and took refuge in Canada. For a time he kept undercover; nothing being heard of him until within the past two years when he turned up in St. Louis, where he had a wealthy widowed sister living who has generally come to the front and squared up Cyrus’s little follies and foibles by paying good round sums of money. Within the past year, however, Cyrus committed a series of St. Louis forgeries that could not be settled so easily, and the erratic young man was compelled to linger in the St. Louis jail for a period of six months.
“Among the many malicious acts that characterized his career was one peculiarly atrocious that has come under our personal notice. Shortly after he left Kansas, leaving his wife and two children dependent upon the bounty of his wife’s mother, he wrote his wife that he could invest some $1,300 of her mother’s money, all she had, in a manner that would return big interest. After some correspondence. he forwarded them a mortgage, signed and executed by one Charles Best, purporting to convey valuable property in St. Louis. Upon this, the money was sent to him. Afterwards the mortgages were found to be base forgeries, no such person as Charles Best being in existence, and the property conveyed in the mortgage fictitious.
“A representative of “The Patriot” met Mrs. Schofield today, and that little lady denies, as absurd, such stories. There were never any domestic clouds in their homes. They always lived harmoniously. As to her religion, she was no more zealous than any other church member. She attended service on the sabbath and tried to live as becomes a Christian woman and mother. It was the first time she had ever heard the objection raised by him. As to supporting herself and children, he had done nothing.
Scofield’s conversion has been held in doubt by one of his biographers.
When did the conversion occur? Scofield says he was converted at the age of thirty-six, and it has been assumed the event did take place sometime before D. L. Moody’s 1879-80 Evangelistic Campaign. This places the conversion sometime after his thirty-sixth birthday on August 19, 1879 and before the first meeting of Moody’s ministers in St. Louis on November 25, 1879. As late as November 6, though, Cyrus was still involved with a forgery charge, and that case’s records do not agree with the picture of a new convert trying to right matters of the past. Of course, God forgives the past and changes a man into a new creature if he is really born again (I Cor. 5:17), but one expects to see a change of behaviour. The details of Cyrus’s conversion are not supported by public records, so we do not know the whole truth about the conversion of a man who has profoundly influenced the church.
Not only does any evidence of Scofileds’ Christian conversion seem to be lacking, but there is no evidence that he had any real founding in the Scriptures.
** Born to a vicar and trained for the church, Coleridge’s early career was preoccupied with his plans for a Utopian commune, Pantisocracy, which he and Robert Southey planned to form in America. This plan was never realized, but Southey and Coleridge collaborated on several poems; most particularly, Coleridge contributed the apocalyptic vision of Joan in Book II of Southey’s Joan of Arc. This and other early writings combined a fervour for the reformation of government through revolution with religious philosophy, especially that of Hartley and Priestley. This mix earned him the attention of the Reverend Edward Irving whom he met in 1822. The companionship between the two began to fade as Irving grew increasingly more millenarian and authoritarian; Coleridge was left doubting his earlier philosophy as Irving misused Coleridge’s ideas on spirituality, particularly as Irving attempted a literal reading of the book of Revelation (Fulford, 21). After his encounter with Irving, Coleridge began to view the apocalypse of St. John as an historical writing rather than divinely inspired, a view largely influenced by his readings into the Cabbala and the works of German biblical scholar J.G. Eichhorn (Fulford, 27). His apocalyptic poems, especially Religious Musings, An Ode to the Departed Year, and France, perhaps reflecting this consideration of the revelation as historical rather than prophetic, appear hopeless, apocalyptic without the promise of a millennium (Paley 24).
Similarly, dispensational Premillennialism is a trans-denominational movement, that is sometimes mistakenly connected directly with the Millerites. Dispensationalism arose during the final third of the 19th century, and unlike the Millerites interprets prophecy in a primarily futurist fashion. This movement developed independently, borrowing heavily but indirectly from earlier Millerites, with radical re-interpretation, so that dispensationalists rarely if ever display unitarian tendencies. Sabbatarianism is excluded, along with British Israelism, and in general end times Dispensationalism is considered protestant and mainstream evangelical, being a very common belief among Christian fundamentalists. Some dispensationalist groups, upon venturing to calculate the date of Christ’s return or interpreting the signs of the times, take on many of the apocalyptic characteristics of Millerite pioneers, but strictly speaking none of them are part of the Millerite Adventist movement.
Charles Taze Russell’s Bible Student movement (from which the Jehovah’s Witnesses emerged in 1931 following a schism in 1917) had connections at the very beginning with the Millerite movement. Bahá’ís also credit Miller’s analysis of the time Christ’s return.
Thanks OJR! I look forward to reading through these.