Principle and Application: Why Progressive Dispensationalism Remains Dispensational

A useful distinction in philosophy and theology is the distinction between a universal principle and its particular application. A principle expresses an objective truth or norm; its application determines what that principle requires in a concrete situation.

The two are inseparable, but they are not identical. One may affirm a principle completely while disagreeing with another person about how that principle should be applied. In classical Christian ethics, this is one of the functions of prudence: universal principles must be rightly brought to bear upon particular circumstances.

This distinction is important because disagreement over an application is sometimes mistakenly treated as denial of the principle itself. Three examples illustrate the problem.

Submission to Governing Authorities

Romans 13 commands Christians to submit to governing authorities. The principle is clear. Yet suppose a government orders a Christian to surrender an innocent family he is hiding so that the authorities can execute them because of their ethnicity.

A Christian may refuse that command without denying Romans 13. He does not need to make the biblical principle relative or meaningless. Rather, he must determine how the obligation to submit to civil authority relates to the higher obligation to obey God and not participate in murder or injustice.

Christians may disagree about exactly where legitimate submission ends and resistance becomes necessary. But such disagreement does not necessarily mean that one side has rejected the biblical principle of submission to government. The dispute may concern its proper application.

The Obligation to Tell the Truth

The same distinction appears in Christian discussions about truthfulness.

"Do not bear false witness" and the obligation to speak truthfully are objective moral principles. But imagine someone hiding an innocent family from murderers. The killers arrive and ask, "Are they here?"

The principle against falsehood has not disappeared. Yet a difficult question immediately arises: Is a person morally obligated to disclose every truth to anyone who demands it? Does a murderer possess a moral right to information that will enable him to kill an innocent person?

Christians who equally affirm the moral obligation of truthfulness have answered such cases differently. Some maintain that deliberate falsehood is never permissible; others argue that those seeking information for an intrinsically evil purpose have no moral claim to the truth being demanded.

Whatever position one adopts, the methodological point remains: disagreement over how a principle applies in a difficult case does not necessarily constitute disagreement over the truth of the principle itself.

The Sabbath

The Sabbath controversies in the Gospels provide an even clearer biblical illustration.

The Sabbath command itself was not in dispute. Yet when Jesus' disciples plucked grain because they were hungry, and when Jesus healed on the Sabbath, the Pharisees accused them of violating the command.

Jesus did not respond by denying the Sabbath. Rather, he challenged the Pharisees' understanding of what faithful Sabbath observance actually required. His statement that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27) exposes precisely the danger involved: a particular interpretation of a principle can become so closely identified with the principle itself that disagreement with the interpretation is treated as rejection of the principle.

Jesus and the Pharisees both recognized the Sabbath. Their controversy concerned what the Sabbath required in concrete situations.

This does not mean that every application is equally legitimate. Applications can certainly be mistaken. The point is narrower but important: one cannot prove that someone has rejected a principle merely by showing that he applies it differently.

That distinction provides a useful framework for understanding part of the controversy between Traditional Dispensationalism (TD) and Progressive Dispensationalism (PD).

Israel and the Church: One Principle, Different Applications

A defining commitment of dispensationalism is the genuine distinction between Israel and the Church. Israel cannot simply be redefined as the Church, the Church does not replace national Israel, and God's promises to Israel cannot simply be dissolved into promises to a different people.

Classical, Revised, and Progressive Dispensationalism all affirm this fundamental principle.

What differs is the way each form of dispensationalism understands the theological implications of that distinction.

Classical Dispensationalism expressed the distinction through a particularly strong heavenly-earthly dualism. Israel was understood as God's earthly people with an earthly calling and destiny, while the Church was understood as God's heavenly people with a heavenly calling and destiny. The distinction between Israel and the Church was therefore expressed not only in terms of identity but also through sharply differentiated spheres and destinies.

Revised Dispensationalism retained the Israel-Church distinction while substantially weakening this earthly-heavenly dualism. Israel and the Church remained distinct within God's program, but the older idea that one people belonged essentially to the earthly sphere while the other belonged essentially to the heavenly sphere was no longer treated as necessary in the same way. The distinction remained, while its theological application changed.

Progressive Dispensationalism goes further by rejecting the earthly-heavenly dualism as the necessary expression of the Israel-Church distinction. It does not posit one ultimate earthly destiny for Israel and an entirely separate heavenly destiny for the Church. Israel and the Church remain distinct, yet both participate in the consummation of the same messianic kingdom and ultimately in the same renewed creation.

The important point is that all three affirm the same principle: Israel and the Church are genuinely distinct. What changes is how that principle is worked out within the larger theological system.

The Classical dispensationalist effectively argues that the distinction entails a strong distinction of spheres and destinies. The Revised dispensationalist affirms the same principle while concluding that such a strict heavenly-earthly dualism is not necessary to preserve it. The Progressive dispensationalist likewise affirms the distinction while understanding Israel and the Church as distinct participants in one unified messianic and eschatological kingdom.

Thus, the development from Classical to Revised to Progressive Dispensationalism demonstrates the very distinction under discussion: the principle remains while its theological application is formulated differently.

None of these three systems says that Israel and the Church are simply identical. None says that the distinction is meaningless. None denies the principle that has historically distinguished dispensationalism from systems that identify the Church as the replacement or fulfillment of Israel in such a way that Israel no longer retains its own future significance.

They disagree over what the distinction entails.

That difference is substantial, but it is a difference within the application and theological development of the principle, not necessarily a difference between affirming and denying the principle.

This is precisely where some criticisms of Progressive Dispensationalism become problematic. Some Traditional Dispensationalists effectively identify their own historical application of the Israel-Church distinction with the principle itself. Once those two things are identified, any rejection of the traditional application necessarily appears to be a rejection of the principle.

But that does not follow.

If PD maintains that Israel is not simply the Church, that the Church has not replaced Israel, that national Israel retains a future in God's redemptive purposes, and that God's promises to Israel cannot simply be canceled or transferred away from Israel, then PD is affirming the Israel-Church distinction.

A critic may certainly argue that PD applies the distinction incorrectly. He may argue that Progressive Dispensationalism allows too much continuity between Israel and the Church or that its understanding of the kingdom does not adequately preserve the implications of their distinction. Those are legitimate theological arguments.

But that is very different from saying that PD denies the distinction itself.

Here the Sabbath controversy becomes particularly instructive. The Pharisees saw Jesus' application of the Sabbath principle and concluded that he was violating the Sabbath because his application did not correspond to theirs. They had so closely identified their understanding of Sabbath observance with the Sabbath command itself that rejecting their application appeared equivalent to rejecting the principle.

The same logical mistake can occur in the debate over Progressive Dispensationalism.

When a Traditional Dispensationalist reasons, "If you truly believe in the distinction between Israel and the Church, you must apply that distinction exactly as our theological tradition does," he has effectively transformed one particular theological application of the principle into the principle itself. Consequently, when PD rejects that application, it is accused of rejecting the distinction.

But the appropriate question is not whether PD reproduces the Traditional Dispensationalist application. The appropriate question is whether PD actually affirms the distinction and preserves what is essential to it.

It does.

Therefore, the more accurate criticism would be:

"Progressive Dispensationalism affirms the Israel-Church distinction, but I believe it applies that distinction incorrectly."

That is a meaningful theological disagreement and can be debated exegetically.

The stronger claim—

"Progressive Dispensationalism denies the distinction between Israel and the Church"—

requires much more. It would require demonstrating that PD has actually abandoned the principle, not merely that it refuses to draw all the conclusions from it that Traditional Dispensationalists believe should be drawn.

The history of dispensationalism itself reinforces this point. Revised Dispensationalism modified important applications of Classical Dispensationalism, particularly its strong earthly-heavenly dualism, without thereby ceasing to be dispensationalism. If modifying the implications of a principle were automatically equivalent to abandoning the principle, Revised Dispensationalism would already have ceased to qualify as dispensationalism.

Yet it did not, because the principle remained.

The same distinction should be granted when evaluating PD.

The Same Issue Appears in Hermeneutics

A similar problem appears in the accusation that Progressive Dispensationalism abandons "literal interpretation."

PD does not reject the grammatical-historical meaning of Scripture. It does not maintain that biblical texts have no objective meaning, nor does it claim that Old Testament promises may simply be spiritualized into something unrelated to what their authors actually communicated.

The disagreement concerns how grammatical-historical interpretation operates within progressive revelation, particularly when the New Testament develops themes and promises first revealed in the Old Testament.

Progressive Dispensationalism commonly speaks of complementary fulfillment. Later revelation may disclose additional dimensions of an earlier promise without canceling its original meaning, invalidating its original referents, or eliminating the people to whom the promise was given.

A TD interpreter and a PD interpreter may both affirm that Scripture possesses objective meaning and must be interpreted according to its grammatical, historical, literary, and canonical context while disagreeing about precisely how progressive revelation affects the interpretation and fulfillment of earlier promises.

Therefore, a different exegetical conclusion does not automatically prove the abandonment of the hermeneutical principle that produced it.

The Traditional Dispensationalist may say, "PD applies literal interpretation inconsistently." That is a claim that must be demonstrated exegetically.

But saying, "PD rejects literal interpretation because it does not reach the same conclusions that TD reaches," simply assumes that the TD application of the hermeneutical principle is identical with the principle itself.

That is precisely what must not be assumed.

The Real Question

None of this means that every theological disagreement can be reduced to a harmless difference in application. Applications can be wrong. A principle can also be reinterpreted so radically that it eventually loses its substance and is effectively abandoned.

Therefore, Traditional Dispensationalists are entirely justified in asking whether Progressive Dispensationalism applies dispensational principles consistently.

But that is precisely the issue that must be demonstrated rather than assumed.

The problem is that many Traditional Dispensationalist criticisms of PD do not sufficiently distinguish between the principle itself and their own interpretation of what that principle necessarily entails. In practice, a particular Traditional Dispensationalist formulation of the Israel-Church distinction is treated as though it were identical with the distinction itself. Once that identification is made, any alternative application of the principle can be portrayed as a denial of the principle.

But those are not the same thing.

The principle is that Israel and the Church are genuinely distinct within God's redemptive program. The further question—how that distinction relates to the kingdom, the covenants, the millennium, the eternal state, and the respective destinies of Israel and the Church—concerns the theological implications and application of that principle.

Traditional Dispensationalism is entitled to argue that its own account of those implications is the most consistent one. It may argue that PD allows too much continuity between Israel and the Church, or that PD's understanding of the kingdom fails to preserve the distinction adequately. Those are legitimate theological criticisms.

What it cannot simply do, however, is define its own application of the principle as the principle itself and then conclude that anyone who rejects that application has rejected the principle.

Unfortunately, many TDs do exactly that, which is why they claim that PD is an aberration and not even a form of dispensationalism. Ryrie's sine qua non is often used in this way: a historically particular formulation is treated as if it were identical with the tradition itself.

Finally, while the Pharisees accused Jesus and His disciples of violating the Sabbath principle, Jesus showed that they were violating only the Pharisees' interpretation of that principle, not the principle itself. The Pharisees had confused their own application of the Sabbath with the Sabbath command itself. That is precisely what I see happening when some Traditional Dispensationalists claim that Progressive Dispensationalism denies the distinction between Israel and the Church: they identify their particular interpretation of that distinction with the principle itself, and then treat any disagreement with their interpretation as a rejection of the principle.

As a Progressive Dispensationalist theologian, I can state with confidence that PD affirms and defends both the principle of distinction between Israel and the Church and the principle of literal, grammatical-historical interpretation.