Journal: Journal of Dispensational Theology
Volume: JODT 29:79 (Autumn 2025)
Article: The Abrahamic-Promise Dispensational Byline
Author: Don Trest

JODT 29:79 (Autumn 2025) p. 159

The Abrahamic-Promise Dispensational Byline

Don Trest

* Don Trest, M.B.S., D.Min., associate professor of Bible & theology, Tyndale Theological Seminary and Biblical Institute; pastor, Bible Fellowship Church, Pass Christian, Mississippi

The present essay ponders elements in dispensational theology that show the benefit of dispensationalism to understanding the message of the Bible. The article is not an extensive treatment but a brief contemplation of the value of dispensationalism to theological enterprise. In the final analysis, dispensationalism marks the faithfulness of God to his promises in the Bible, in particular, the Abrahamic Promises and the relationship of those promises to national Israel, the Gentile nations, and to the church — the body of Christ.

The Dispensational Reading Of The Bible, Plain And Simple

God has spoken. The Bible is the record of that communication. Believing and doing what God has said in the Bible is the task of the church. The role of the theologian-pastor in the church is to learn and then live the Word of God and teach others to do likewise. Distinguishing the dispensations one from another with their corresponding dispensational programs offers the best opportunity for understanding the message of the Bible as given to man by God and for the living of lives that are pleasing to the Lord.

Read The Bible Forward, Not Backward

The best approach to reading any book is to begin at the beginning and read the story to the end. God's dispensational design becomes apparent in the careful reading of the biblical account, beginning in Genesis and moving forward through the Bible, verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter, book-by-book, to its conclusion in Revelation, noting the historical progress of events and subsequent revelations from God to man. The plain-sense, forward reading of the text permits the Bible to say what it means and mean what it says, leading naturally to a dispensational understanding of the biblical story.

JODT 29:79 (Autumn 2025) p. 160

Unlike dispensationalism, some theological systems read the New Testament backward into the Old Testament. The backward reading of the biblical text tends to replace Israel with the church in the promises and prophecies of the Bible or to include the church as co-party to the covenants God made exclusively with Israel. Theologies that blur the distinction between Israel and the church forsake grammatical-historical hermeneutics for unnatural allegorical or forced theological constructs to change the way the biblical narrative is understood.

In the plain-sense, forward reading of the Bible, the church does not replace Israel in the promises, prophecies, and covenant...