(Chicago: Moody, 1965), 43 – 44.
Today's Gospel: Good News or Bad?
'natural' [unsaved] man."5 That was a foreign concept to most Chris tians in Dr. Chafer's generation,6 but it has become a central premise for a large segment of the church today. Dr. Chafer's doctrine of spirituality, along with some of his other teachings, have become the basis of a whole new way of looking at the gospel. It is therefore essential to confront what he taught.
Chafer's dichotomy between carnal and spiritual Chris tians was seen by Dr. B. B. Warfield as an echo of "the jargon of the Higher Life teachers,"7 who taught that a higher plane of victorious living was available to Chris tians who would lay hold of it by faith. This idea of two classes of believers was undoubtedly an unfortunate result of Chafer's predilection for dispensationalist distinctions. It is a classic example of how dispensationalism's methodology can be carried too far.
Dispensationalism is a fundamentally correct system of understanding God's program through the ages. Its chief element is a recognition that God's plan for Israel is not superseded by or swallowed up in His program for the church. Israel and the church are separate entities, and God will restore national Israel under the earthly rule of Jesus as Messiah. I accept and affirm that tenet, because it emerges from a consistently literal interpretation of Scripture (while still recognizing the presence of legitimate metaphor in the Bible). And in that regard, I consider myself a traditional premillennial dispensationalist.8
5. Lewis Sperry Chafer, He Th at Is Spiritual, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967), 21. 6. Th ose schooled in dispensationalist theology may be surprised to learn that Dr. Chafer's book was extremely controversial when fi rst released. In a scathing review, Dr. B. B. Warfi eld took issue with Chafer's basic premise. While not denying the obvious truth that Chris tians can behave in carnal ways, Warfi eld objected vigorously to the classifi cation of carnality as a separate state of the spiritual life. Warfi eld makes some excellent points:
Th is teaching is indistinguishable from what is ordinarily understood by the doctrine of a "second blessing," "a second work of grace," "the higher life.". . .
Th e remainders of the fl esh in the Chris tian do not constitute his characteristic. He is in the Spirit and is walking, with however halting steps, by the Spirit; and it is to all Chris tians, not to some, that the great promise is given, "Sin shall not have dominion over you," and the great assurance is added, "Because ye are not under the law but under grace." He who believes in Jesus Christ is under grace, and his whole course, in its process and in its issue alike, is determined by grace, and therefore, having been predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son, he is surely being conformed to that image, God Himself seeing to it that he is not only called and justifi ed but also glorifi ed. You may fi nd Chris tians at every stage of this process, for it is a process through which all must pass; but you will fi nd none who will not in God's own good time and way pass through every stage of it. Th ere are not two kinds of Chris tians, although there are Chris tians at every conceivable stage of advancement towards the one goal to which all are bound and at which all shall arrive (Benjamin B. Warfi eld, review in Princeton Th eological Review [April 1919], 322 – 27).
7. Ibid., 322. 8. A defi nition of biblical dispensationalism is given in Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody, 1965), 43 – 44.