Darby’s Dubious Method of Bible Intepretation

“I look for a plain, common sense, literal statement…” [1]

– John Nelson Darby

Biblical interpretation became the primary issue for Darby in the Brethren controversies. Darby didn’t just introduce new teachings; he introduced a new way of looking at the Scriptures. This new method of reading the Bible would affect theologians and Christians for the rest of the century.

A Product of Its Time

It is likely that the Baconian tradition in Scottish Common Sense Philosophy had a great impact on Darby’s literal approach to Bible interpretation.[2] The Baconian System, which is based on the revered philosopher Francis Bacon, “first gathers the teachings of the word of God, and then seeks to deduce some general law upon which the facts can be arranged.”[3] This supported the notion of building up and following hard, neutral “facts” wherever they may lead. Church historian George Marsden remarks:

[Dispensationalists] were absolutely convinced that all they were doing was taking the hard facts of Scripture, carefully arranging and classifying them, and thus discovering the clear patterns which Scripture revealed.[4]

As a case in point, Nathaniel West, a Presbyterian theologian of the 19^th Century, heavily insisted that each number and date in the Bible (like the thousand year reign) was literal, much like every prophecy about Israel must be literal and contain no symbolism. Arthur T. Pierson, who organized the 1887 Bible conference, also asserted a very anti-allegorical view of Scripture that in effectively turned “poetry into science.”[5]

Evidently, instead of reading a written work like its original author intended (“exegesis”), the impact of this philosophy probably led many Christians to force ideas out of and into the Bible (“eisegesis”). There had to have been precisely 5000 men who ate the bread of Jesus in John 6, not 5001 or 4999. Why? Because a true interpretation of the Bible must be a wooden, literalistic one – one that meets up to our modern standards of precision, not to the author’s own intention. Alas, Scottish Common Sense Philosophy largely assisted in the birth of Dispensationalism and its literalistic method.[6]

One particular example of this literalism at work is when Dispensationalists require that the word “Israel” must always mean the literal nation of Israel anytime it is mentioned in the New Testament.[7] Context, purpose, authorship, genre, and everything else related to exegesis are secondary (if not irrelevant). So, in Galatians 6:16, where Paul uses the expression “Israel of God” to refer to both the Jewish and Gentile Galatians, dispensationalists are forced to say Paul is only referring to the national kingdom of Israel. But that’s just not true. As Cambridge scholar G.K. Beale remarked,

Since the dominant message is one of doing away with national distinctions among God’s people (3,7-8.26-29; 4,26-31; 5,2-12), it would seem unlikely that Paul would conclude the epistle by referring to those in the church according to their ethnic distinctives. This idea is especially unlikely since 6,11-18, as the conclusion of the epistle, is intended by Paul to summarize its major themes. [8]

Therefore, to say “the Israel of God” refers only to the physical, “literal,” nation of the Jews in Galatians 6:16, is just bad hermeneutics.

What is the Church?

Not only did Darby believe the church was ruined, but he also believed the church didn’t exist in the Old Testament. He said, “A Jewish church is an unscriptural fallacy,” and “the body of the church could not exist before the glorification of Jesus, for this would have been a body without a Head.”[9]

Covenant theology, on the other hand, recognizes the overall continuity of God’s work in history; the New and Old Testaments may be different, but they are not alien to each other. If the church is a group of people that believe in God and God’s promises,[10] then the church, at least in a very general sense, begins with Abraham. The church isn’t a radical new idea. It has historical and theological roots (just like the other aspects of a covenant, such as a meal of celebration, a seal of blood, a visible sign, etc.). That’s partly why so many New Testament authors like Paul and James refer back to Abraham’s faith as an example for today’s Christians. As Robert Reymond says,

The Old Testament did testify concerning the future blessings which the Gentiles would share with the Jews (see Gen. 9:26-27; 12:3 [see Gal. 3:8]; 22:18; 26:4; 28;14; Pss. 67; 72:8-11, 17; 87; Isa. 11:10; 49:6; 54:1-3 [see Gal. 4:27]…). What was not so clearly revealed in the Old Testament times was that the Gentiles would be on “a footing of perfect equality” (Hendriksen) with the Jews in Christ’s body, the church…Paul’s statements do not teach the radical conclusions which dispensationalists wish to draw from them, namely, that the Old Testament saints did not know that the Messiah would be rejected and suffer or that a distinction must be drawn between Old Testament Israel “under law” and the New Testament church “under grace,” and that these people are two people of God who are “not to be intermingled or confused, as they are chronologically successive.”[11]

Thus, what is somewhat new is that God’s people in the New Covenant are made up of Jews and Gentiles. In older covenants, God’s “chosen people” were normally comprised exclusively of Jews.[12] But, in the new covenant, Gentiles are “grafted in” to the existing branch of the Jewish root (Romans 11). This is the “mystery” Paul talks about in Ephesians 3:

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles – assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (Eph 3:1-6, ESV, emphasis mine)

Dispensationalists believe that this text says that the church was never mentioned or prophesied about in the Old Testament. However, that’s not what the text is saying. Paul says the mystery is that “Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body,” (emphasis mine). The Gentiles are added to the faithful remnant of Old Testament Israel (Rom. 11). Today’s Christians are added to the existing group of God’s people. That’s the mystery, nothing more, nothing less. It has nothing to do with Old Testament prophecies regarding the New Testament church or the inauguration of a new Dispensation of Grace.

Indeed, there is continuity between the Old and New Testaments. To quote again from A Reformed Confession Regarding Hermeneutics:

WE AFFIRM that all of God’s post-fall covenantal administrations complemented (not contradicted) each other, being progressively revealed facets of the same underlying single promise of God which came to fulfillment in the person and saving work of Jesus Christ.

WE AFFIRM that the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are one in purpose and substance, constituting a unified Covenant of Grace established by God, with both Testaments testifying to the person and saving work of Christ as the central message of the whole Bible.[13]

Dispensationalism simply does not recognize this continuity. As a result, the Bible is illegitimately cut up into various segments, causing theological confusion and a myriad of questionable conclusions.

Darby’s View on the End times

Darby’s eschatology grows out of two basic principles: his doctrine of the church, which is itself rooted in his dispensational dichotomy between Israel and the church, and a hermeneutical application of rigid literalism, particularly to prophetic Scripture.[14]

Darby saw the nation of Israel and God’s Kingdom as being on hold while the church is something totally different. To illustrate, the “Israel train” is on one track, while the “church train” is on another. They don’t ever cross. They stay parallel. And right now, in the 21^st century, we are in the dispensation of “grace,” the age of the church. The Israel train stopped moving ever since Pentecost. The church train, however, started moving at Pentecost.[15] And Gentile Christians have always been – and always will be – on the church train. Likewise, Jews will always be on the Israel train and never on the church train. When Jesus comes back to establish his literal 1,000 year kingdom, the Israel train will start moving again until the final consummation.

Thus, according to Darby, Israel was promised a working government on the earth. But, since they failed to manifest it in the right way, God post-poned the literal kingdom. Contrary to what Jesus said in the gospels that “the kingdom of God is here,” Dispensationalism says the kingdom of God was not here. Why? Because the kingdom of the Messiah that was promised in the Old Testament was, according to Darby, supposed to be literal, not spiritual. And since Jesus came and the kingdom was not literal, there is no other option but for Jesus to come back and set up a literal kingdom in a thousand year reign.

This “literal kingdom” would entail the following events:

1. The Jewish nation will occupy the land (Palestine).
2. The temple (in Jerusalem) will be rebuilt.
3. The sacrifices will be re-instituted.
4. Christ will sit upon the throne of David.
5. Israel will be known nationally as the people favored by God.

According to Darby, all of this will be fulfilled by the faithful remnant that endures through the horrible tribulation.

To put Darby’s eschatology another way, there are five eschatological innovations that differ from traditional views (historic church):

1. The spiritual interpretation of the heavenly Jerusalem.
2. The ignorance of the true nature of the Gentile and Jewish dispensations.
3. The role of the Gentiles in the millennium.
4. The distinction between God’s kingdom and Christ’s earthly reign upon the throne of David.
5. Restoration of Paradise during the millennium.[16]

It’s important to keep in mind that Christians had been reading the Bible for over a thousand years and didn’t really come to any of these conclusions. How, then, did Darby arrive at his position? What’s the magic formula? Here’s what he said:

In prophecy, when the Jewish church or nation…is concerned…we may look for a plan and direct testimony, because earthly things were the Jews’ proper portion. And, on the contrary, where the address is to the Gentiles…there we may look for symbol, because earthly things were not their portion, and the system of revelation to them must be symbolical. When therefore the facts are addressed to the Jewish church as a subsisting body…I look for plain, common sense, literal statement…”[17]

These artificial rules put enormous stress on Bible interpretation, because according to Darby, every time a prophecy about “Israel” comes up, it must be interpreted literally. It doesn’t matter what the context is. It doesn’t matter who the author is or who he is writing to. It doesn’t matter what the genre of the writing is, or when it was written, or even what it’s about. The simple fact is, it must be literal. No questions asked.

Thus, Dispensationalism is based on forced exegesis – which isn’t exegesis at all. How can a person find out what the Bible is saying if that person comes to the Bible already assuming what it is supposed to say and how it is supposed to say it? Darby’s assumptions about what is “literal” and “spiritual” require eisegesis, which is really no different than stuffing a sock in the mouth of God. Later on during our discussion of Scofield, we’ll see specific examples of this Scriptural eisegesis.

Conclusion

In short, God has spoken in His Word. But, we can only hear God in His Word if we let the Word speak. That is the task of exegesis, and that is the task that Darby’s theology seems to undermine.

If Dispensationalism has any coherence at all, it’s due to the fact that it mimics covenant theology. Darby’s dispensations overlap God’s covenants. This is what gives Dispensationalism an artificial sense of consistency. Many dispensational doctrines about Old Testament law changing from the Dispensation of Law to the dispensation of Grace resemble the teaching of traditional, covenant theology. But, we have to ask ourselves: is it the categories of Darby that give a clear, coherent structure to God’s Word, or is it the covenantal dealings of God with his people in history?

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[1] Ibid, 129.

[2] I say “likely,” because the effect of Common Sense Realism on American Evangelicalism has been overplayed from time to time. See D.A. Carson and John Woodbridge, Eds. Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1986), 15-18.

[3] The Suffering of Christ. “The Coming of the Lord.” Prophetic Conference. (Allegheny, PA: December 3, 1895).

[4] George Marsden. Fundamentalism in American Culture (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006), 56.

[5] Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 58.

[6] We might say Dispensationalism’s sisters are fundamentalism and evidentialism, which are, likewise, daughters of Common Sense.

[7] “In prophecy, when the Jewish church or nation…is concerned…we may look for a plan and direct testimony, because earthly things were the Jews’ proper portion. And, on the contrary, where the address is to the Gentiles…there we may look for symbol, because earthly things were not their portion, and the system of revelation to them must be symbolical. When therefore the facts are addressed to the Jewish church as a subsisting body…I look for plain, common sense, literal statement…” John Nelson Darby quoted in Backgrounds to Dispensationalism, 129.

[8] G.K. Beale. “Peace and Mercy Upon the Israel of God: The Old Testament Background of Galatians 6:16b.” Biblica 80 (1999): 206.

[9] John N. Darby. Thoughts on the Apocalypse (1904), 512.

[10] This is more of a generic statement; not all covenant theologians or new covenant theologians’ would agree with this assessment.

[11] Robert Reymond. A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 540-41.

[12] There are accepted “aliens.” See Ex. 22:1, Lev. 19:33-34, Deut 1:16; 10:19, Jer. 7:6, etc.

[13] The entirety of this confession can be found in the Appendices of this volume.

[14] Bass, Backgrounds to Dispensationalism, 130.

[15] There are, of course, variations within Dispensationalism on this point.

[16] Ibid., Backgrounds to Dispensationalism, 129.

[17] Ibid.