by D. Collier Brown
One of the major tenets of Dispensational Theology (DT) is a 7-year period of tribulation thrust upon the nation of Israel following the rapture of the Church. This, they say, would occur in fulfillment of the prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27:
"Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate."
DT believes that the final ‘week’ (i.e. 7-year period) of Daniel’s 70 weeks remains yet unfulfilled, but must come to pass in order for God to complete His judgment upon Israel and finish His plan for them as promised under the Old Covenant. Furthermore, they see the gap between the first 69 weeks and the yet-to-be-inaugurated 70th week to be the age of the Church and the New Covenant. This then becomes an open-ended season which began at Christ’s first coming and continues until His second coming. It is an interval, they say, inserted by God when the Jews refused to receive Jesus as their Messiah-King. After the 70th week is accomplished, the Messiah will return to earth to establish His kingdom over the Jews and reign from Jerusalem for 1,000 years.
This, it seems to me, is nothing less than a return to the Old Covenant and a setting aside of the New. I say this because for the Lord to revert His attention from His church and the New Covenant, and to once again focus upon Israel exclusively, requires Him to return to the only covenant which dealt exclusively with them.
A return to the Old Covenant and a setting aside of the New is problematic and raises a number of significant biblical questions including:
• What does Hebrews Chapter 8 teach about the relationship between the Old and New covenants?
• What does it teach about the nature of each covenant?
• What does it suggest about the possibility of the Old being revived after the New has come?
• What does it say about the New being set aside at some point in time after its inauguration?
The answers to these questions are paramount and will either support DT’s assertions regarding a future tribulation period for Israel or refute it. Once we examine the context of Hebrews Chapter 8, I hope that you will see the error of DT’s hypothesis.
To begin with, the writer of Hebrews says that the New Covenant is a better covenant than the Old (v6) because it contains “better promises.“ He goes on to say that if the first covenant (the Old) had been without fault, there would have been no need for a second covenant (the New, v7). Because the Old Covenant had serious flaws—it could not provide the forgiveness of sins, it could not change human hearts and give life, and it could not allow anyone to truly know God (v8-12)—it was necessary for God to make a new covenant. Only the New could provide all of these things. Thus, only the New could fulfill God’s plan of redemption for all mankind, both Jew and Gentile alike. In addition, the writer makes it clear in verse 13 that the New Covenant is not only necessary and superior to the Old, but that it has replaced the Old. The coming of the New has made the Old “obsolete” and caused it to “disappear” in its entirety.
How do these points answer our questions from the preceding paragraph? First, the writer of Hebrews makes it very clear that the first covenant with Israel was the weak and ineffective covenant, that it was intended to be temporary and would last only until it was superseded by the New and vastly superior covenant. Once the New was in effect, the Old became obsolete and disappeared. There is not even a hint of a future revival, and due to its very nature why would there be? It would defy logic for that which was but a shadow of the true and everlasting covenant, and pointed to its necessity, to become the focus yet again. It would be like a husband preferring a photo of his wife to actually being with her. Second, the writer makes it plain that the two covenants were not designed to exist at the same time. In fact, that would be impossible. Thus, if God were to return to the Old, the New must be withdrawn. It would be rendered ineffective and the plan of redemption nullified.
In his letters to the churches of Galatia and Ephesus, the apostle Paul affirmed these conclusions. He spoke of the Old as “a tutor” and declares that once the New has come, we are no longer in need of a tutor. He spoke of the New as producing the “one new man” made up of both Jew and Gentile by breaking down “the wall that divided them”— the Old Covenant. He further declares that all of this was in accordance with God’s eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ. Once He created the new man, why would He return to the old? Once He has achieved His eternal purpose, why would He return to one that was only temporary by design? All of this is recorded in Galatians 3:23-29 and in Ephesians 2:12-3:13, should you care to read it for yourself.
The major tenet of DT’s eschatological scheme does not pass the test of Hebrews Chapter 8. It is not possible because it would necessitate a return to the Old Covenant which the writer of Hebrews affirms has been replaced by the New, once and for all. By this reasoning, we can also rule out any future 1,000-year earthly Jewish Kingdom.
[NOTE: Much of DT’s confusion in this area stems from a faulty interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, particularly Daniel 9:24-27. For a more accurate interpretation, see Chapter 12 of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ The Church And The Last Things.]