Dispensationalism is a religious interpretive system and metanarrative for the Bible. It considers biblical history as divided by God into dispensations, defined periods or ages to which God has allotted distinctive administrative principles. According to dispensationalism, each age of God’s plan is thus administered in a certain way, and humanity is held responsible as a steward during that time. Dispensationalists’ presuppositions start with the inductive reasoning that biblical history has a particular discontinuity in the way God reacts to humanity in the unfolding of their, sometimes supposed, free wills. Dispensationalism stands in contrast to the traditional system of covenant theology used in biblical interpretation.
Progressive revelation
Progressive revelation is the doctrine in Christianity that each successive book of the Bible provides further revelation of God and His program. For instance, the theologian Charles Hodge wrote:
“The progressive character of divine revelation is recognized in relation to all the great doctrines of the Bible… What at first is only obscurely intimated is gradually unfolded in subsequent parts of the sacred volume, until the truth is revealed in its fullness.”[2]
The New Testament writings, then, contain additional information regarding God and His program beyond the writings of the Old Testament.
Disagreement exists between covenant theology and dispensationalism regarding the meaning of revelation. Covenant theology views the New Testament as the key to interpreting the Old Testament. Therefore, concepts such as the Biblical covenants and promises to Israel are believed to be interpreted by the New Testament as applying to the church.
Dispensationalism, however, holds that both the Old Testament and New Testament are interpreted using literal grammatical-historical interpretation. As a result, they reject the idea that the meaning of the Old Testament was hidden and that the New Testament can alter the straightforward meaning of the Old Testament. Their view of progressive revelation is that the New Testament contains new information which can build on the Old Testament but cannot change its meaning.
