THOMAS: Covenant theology does actually address that very issue because it says that there is only
one covenant of grace and it operates in both Old Testament and New Testament. In the Old Testament,
the fulfillment in terms of the coming of Jesus is still
anticipatory (I've learnt to say it the American way) and, of course, from
the Ascension onwards and Pentecost onwards it's in the reality of Christ the Messiah who has come.
Now, Reformed theology has differed as to whether there is a future for ethnic
Israel. Calvin seems to be on the side that there is not, that Israel is the church,
the church is Israel, there is no special prophecy for a worldwide conversion of Jews.
But then you and I, we were talking at lunch about John Murray, and John Murray
in his commentary on Romans 11:26, "And all Israel shall be saved" saw that in terms of a future
conversion on a large scale of ethnic Jews. I don't think Murray had any ideas that that
involved the nation of Israel or Palestine or the significance of 1948, and so on. But certainly
you and I in England with Mission to the Jews that nineteenth century Robert Murray McCheyne founded
very much on the point of view that "All Israel shall be saved" was a reference to ethnic Jews.
NICHOLS: This is a serious issue, dispensationalism and
non-dispensationalism with covenant theology ... there are three issues. We talked about one.
It's eschatology and the eschatological timeframe. The other is this two peoples of God and it ends
up being two ways of salvation. It ends up being this bifurcation of the Testaments, so that sharp
distinction between Israel and the church rather than an understanding of one person of God or the
one people of God rather. The third issue is just reading the Bible. And here is fundamentally the
problem with dispensationalism. The parts that matter are the epistles, and the parts that we
sort of pick and choose from are the Gospels and the Old Testament. And so, that's I think the real
Achilles' heel here. We can get hung up on the eschatological calendars and the differences,
but I think what we need to see is this is not a healthy way. A dispensational
theology and a dispensational hermeneutic is not a healthy way to read the Bible.
THOMAS: When I did a course in eschatology at seminary under a postmillenialist
and we had to study Ryrie's book on Dispensationalism, which was all the rage.
And there are various kinds of dispensationalism, and some are way more complicated than others.
But for me Jesus' words in Caesarea Philippi are absolutely foundational that there is only one
plan, and that plan is called "church." And it's not as though the disciples come to Him and say,
"But Rabbi, it's been Israel for thousands of years. What is the new thing called
church?" because Jesus hadn't been preaching about church; He had been preaching about kingdom. But
they instinctively understood what He said when He used the word "ecclesia." They immediately,
I think, associated with a word that sounds like "synagogue," and, therefore, could embed that
directly back into the Old Testament. And these were Jews. So, Matthew 16 at
Caesarea Philippi to me was the sort of death knell of the bifurcation of the Testaments.