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Kingdom: One people or Dispensational

  • 3Statements
  • 10Moments
  • 9Passages
  • 18Traditions

Israel and the church: one people of God, or two?

One-people Christians say the church, Jew and Gentile together, inherits the promises to Abraham, and Christ reigns now. Dispensationalists keep Israel and the church distinct: God’s promises to the nation will be kept literally in a future earthly kingdom, and most expect the church caught up before a seven-year tribulation.

Why it matters

It changes what a sermon on Revelation, or on the end times, is about. A dispensational church reads prophecy with modern Israel in view and may teach a rapture and a tribulation still to come; a one-people church reads the same chapters as fulfilled in Christ and His people, and treats the thousand years as this present age or as one still ahead. It also decides whether a congregation hears about Israel from the pulpit at all.

Where does each tradition sit?

What does each side believe?

One people

The one-people-of-God view holds that there is a single people of God across both testaments: in Christ, the church, Jew and Gentile together, inherits the promises to Abraham, and Christ’s kingdom is present now; His return brings the new creation, for some after a millennial reign on earth. Read this way the Old Testament is not a separate story with a separate ending, and the promises of land and throne find their answer in Christ and in the world He is making new.

Dispensational

The dispensational view keeps Israel and the church distinct: God’s promises to national Israel will be fulfilled literally in a future earthly kingdom, and most on this side expect the church to be caught up before a seven-year tribulation. That catching-away is what people mean by the rapture, and it is why a dispensational church watches modern Israel with prophecy in mind.

Did you know?

  • The rapture is a recent idea. A catching-away of the church before a seven-year tribulation was taught by J. N. Darby from the 1830s and carried into ordinary pews by the notes of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909.

    J. N. Darby, Plymouth Brethren, 1830s; Scofield Reference Bible, 1909.

  • Justin Martyr would fit neither side. Writing around AD 160 he called Christians ‘the true spiritual Israel’ and in the same book expected Christ to reign a thousand years in a rebuilt Jerusalem; those two claims now belong to opposite camps.

    Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 11 and 80, c. AD 155–160.

  • Lutherans are almost never premillennial, and it is written into their confession: the Augsburg Confession of 1530 condemns the teaching that the saints will possess an earthly kingdom before the resurrection of the dead.

    Augsburg Confession XVII, 1530.

How did this disagreement develop?

How the argument unfolded

10 moments, from the 2nd century to the 20th

  1. c. AD 155–180 Justin Martyr calls Christians ‘the true spiritual Israel’, yet he and Irenaeus expect a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth in a rebuilt Jerusalem.
  2. c. AD 413–426 Augustine, City of God, reads the thousand years of Revelation 20 as the present church age.
  3. 1530 Augsburg Confession XVII condemns the teaching that the saints will possess an earthly kingdom before the resurrection of the dead.
  4. 1646 Westminster Confession ch. 7: not two covenants of grace but one and the same, differently administered under law and gospel.
  5. 1830s J. N. Darby, a leader of the Plymouth Brethren, teaches a distinct Israel and a pretribulational rapture.
  6. 1909 Scofield Reference Bible carries dispensationalism into the pews.
  7. 1924–65 Lewis Sperry Chafer founds Dallas Theological Seminary; his Systematic Theology (1947–48) and Ryrie’s Dispensationalism Today (1965) give the system its classic form.
  8. 1950s George Eldon Ladd’s historic premillennialism: a future millennium, one people of God, the church through the tribulation.
  9. 1965–96 Vatican II, Nostra Aetate: the Jews are not rejected by God (Romans 11:28–29); Presbyterian (1987) and Methodist (1996) statements add that the church has not replaced them.
  10. 1990s Progressive dispensationalism (Blaising, Bock, Saucy) holds that the church already shares in the new covenant and kingdom blessings, while national Israel keeps a distinct future.

Which Bible passages do both sides argue from?

Passages both sides argue from

Tap one to read it. BSB, public domain since 30 April 2023 (berean.bible/licensing.htm).

Genesis 17:7–8

Genesis 17 · verses 7–8

  1. 7I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
  2. 8And to you and your descendants I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as an eternal possession; and I will be their God.”

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Daniel 9:24–27

Daniel 9 · verses 24–27

  1. 24Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
  2. 25Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress.
  3. 26Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.
  4. 27And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Matthew 24

Matthew 24 · verses 1–5 of 51 in the passage

  1. 1As Jesus left the temple and was walking away, His disciples came up to Him to point out its buildings.
  2. 2“Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
  3. 3While Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?”
  4. 4Jesus answered, “See to it that no one deceives you.
  5. 5For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Romans 11

Romans 11 · verses 1–5 of 36 in the passage

  1. 1I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
  2. 2God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel:
  3. 3“Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well”?
  4. 4And what was the divine reply to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
  5. 5In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Galatians 3:26–29

Galatians 3 · verses 26–29

  1. 26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
  2. 27For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
  3. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
  4. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Ephesians 2:11–22

Ephesians 2 · verses 11–15 of 12 in the passage

  1. 11Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)—
  2. 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
  3. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
  4. 14For He Himself is our peace, Who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility
  5. 15by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18

1 Thessalonians 4 · verses 13–17 of 6 in the passage

  1. 13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.
  2. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.
  3. 15By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.
  4. 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise.
  5. 17After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Hebrews 8:6–13

Hebrews 8 · verses 6–10 of 8 in the passage

  1. 6Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises.
  2. 7For if that first covenant had been without fault, no place would have been sought for a second.
  3. 8But God found fault with the people and said: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
  4. 9It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not abide by My covenant, and I disregarded them, declares the Lord.
  5. 10For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Revelation 20:1–6

Revelation 20 · verses 1–5 of 6 in the passage

  1. 1Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the Abyss, holding in his hand a great chain.
  2. 2He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
  3. 3And he threw him into the Abyss, shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations until the thousand years were complete. After that, he must be released for a brief period of time.
  4. 4Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
  5. 5The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years were complete. This is the first resurrection.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Further reading

One people

  • Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism
  • Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom

Dispensational

  • Ryrie, Dispensationalism
  • Blaising & Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism

Suggest a correction

Berean Standard Bible