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The Christian Citizen

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06
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A Calvinist Looks at Prophecy

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E.J. Young

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PROPHECY AND THE CHURCH, an examination of the claim of dispensationalists that the Christian Church is a mystery parenthesis which interrupts the fulfillment to Israel of the kingdom prophecies of the Old Testament, by Oswald T. Allis. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Philadelphia, 1945. $2.50.

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 To SAY that this book is interesting is to be guilty of understatement. It is nothing short of fascinating. It was with difficulty that we put it down, for here is presented, in readable and popular form, a magnificent broadside against modern dispensationalism. At the same time—and this we would say at the outset—the work is positive and constructive. No one can read these pages without having a clearer idea of the unity and harmony of God's Holy Word, without coming more fully to see and appreciate the "consent of all the parts.”

    On the jacket of the book the central theme is emphasized. A cross is represented, and on this cross are two quotations from Scripture: “Behold now is the accepted time”; "Now is the day of salvation." Thus Paul speaks, basing his message upon the words of Isaiah the Prophet. Prophecy and Church unite to declare the great truth of salvation through the gospel.

    Never was this emphasis upon the unity of Scripture more needed than at present. There are two classes of people who seem to seek to destroy this unity. One is the critic, who tenaciously clings to his documentary divisions. The other is the dispensationalist, against whom the present book is written.

    The author, Dr. Oswald T. Allis, is proving to be the great champion and defender of the unity and harmony of the Bible in our day. Against the critics he has written his devastating argument, The Five Books of Moses. Now, against the other destroyers of Scripture's unity, the dispensationalists, appears the present volume, Prophecy and the Church.

    Dr. Allis endeavors to point out that the phenomenon of dispensationalism is based upon a false, literalistic method of interpretation, which ignores the true character of the Old Covenant. As every devout student of the Bible must know, the Old Dispensation was preparatory in character, and typical of that which was to come. We read, "And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after,” (Heb. 3:5). The prophets were, under Moses, men of the Old Testament dispensation, and they employed the language of their day to speak of the great age of redemption to come.

    The dispensationalists lose sight of this fact. They tell us that "Israel always means Israel," and that the prophecies regarding Israel are not changed. In consequence of this, as Dr. Allis rightly points out, they hold that the kingdom announced by John the Baptist must be an earthly, political, nationalistic Jewish kingdom. Thus the postponement or parenthesis view of the church is introduced, and the Jewish kingdom is reserved for a time after the parenthesis.

    One of the many merits of this work is its splendid treatment of the Old Testament prophecies. Indeed, we do not know when we have read a treatise on prophecy that contains so much common sense. This book sounds like the voice of Hengstenberg, and Keil and Fairbairn. And that, we think, is about as high a compliment as we can pay it. For, although the work is simply written, it is, nevertheless, profound and scholarly. Dr. Allis knows what he is talking about. He knows the nature of the Old Testament and its prophecy. He knows the Hebrew language, and there is an air of authority—not dogmatism—about his work.

    In a brief review of this kind, we cannot do justice to the entire book. One minor point we would mention, because it is so admirably handled and because it contains such a deathblow to the dispensationalist theory. In his treatment of Daniel 9:27, Dr. Allis shows that the verse is not talking about the making of a covenant. "It is a mistake to say that these words apply to the making of a seven-year covenant, and to infer that the maker of it cannot be the Messiah whose covenant is an everlasting covenant” (p. 122). Good! Let us do away once and for all with this incorrect interpretation upon which the dispensationalists have been leaning so heavily. Daniel is not here speaking about the making of a new covenant at all.

    This is an admirable book. It contains a richness of good, sound, Biblical interpretation. It carries the principles of dispensationalistic interpretation to their logical conclusion and shows how untenable they are. It proves its point. It demonstrates that the time-honored method of interpreting Scripture in the light of Scripture is, after all, the only true one. We heartily recommend this splendid work to readers of THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN. It should go far to revive interest in the true study of prophecy. May God richly bless its ministry to the edification of His church!

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Notes

E.J. Young

Professor of Old Testament from 1936 until his death in 1968. He served as the moderator of the OPC general assembly in 1956 and was also a member of the American Oriental Society, the Evangelical Theological Society, and the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis.

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