charts are still in print and used by many dispensationalists, also pointed to the phrase "Thy kingdom
Today's Gospel: Good News or Bad?
of the kingdom," the "Manifesto of the King."12 He believed its purpose was to declare "the essential character of the [millennial] kingdom." He judged it to be law, not grace, and concluded it made no reference to either salvation or grace. "Such a complete omission of any reference to any feature of the present age of grace, is a fact which should be carefully weighed," he wrote.13
Other dispensationalist writers did weigh those ideas and went on to state in more explicit terms what Chafer only hinted at: that the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount "have no application to the Chris tian, but only to those who are under the Law, and therefore must apply to another Dispensation than this."14 This lamentable hermeneutic is widely applied in varying degrees to much of our Lord's earthly teaching, emasculating the message of the Gospels.15
It is no wonder that the evangelistic message growing out of such a system differs sharply from the gospel according to Jesus. If we begin with the presupposition that much of Christ's message was intended for another age, why should our gospel be the same as the one He preached?
But that is a dangerous and untenable presupposition. Jesus did not come to proclaim a message that would be invalid until the Tribulation or the Millennium. He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came to call sinners to repentance (Matt. 9:13). He came so the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). He proclaimed the saving gospel, not merely a manifesto for some future age. His gospel is the only message we are to preach.
Wrongly Dividing the Word
Let's look a little more closely at the dispensationalist tendency to make unwarranted contrasts between related or parallel truths. It is important that
12. Ibid., 138. 13. Ibid., 139. Contrast this with Luther's statement that "the Sermon on the Mount is not Law, but Gospel." Cited in John R. W. Stott, Chris tian Counter-Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1978), 37.
14. Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth (Philadelphia: Larkin, 1918), 87. Larkin, whose books and charts are still in print and used by many dispensationalists, also pointed to the phrase "Th y kingdom come" in the Lord's Prayer as proof the prayer is meant only "for those who shall be living in the 'Tribulation Period.' " His conclusion is unwarranted. Th e kingdom is also yet to come for those living today, before the Tribulation.
15. It should be pointed out that many dispensationalists resent the criticism that they relegate the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus to a future age. Most dispensationalists will say they see application of the Sermon to the church age, but still stop short of saying its primary message is for Chris tians. Even Dr. Ryrie, who wrote a passionate counterattack to this charge, falls short of embracing the Sermon on the Mount as truth for today. Aft er a lengthy defense of the traditional dispensationalist view of the Sermon on the Mount, Ryrie concludes that it cannot be applied "primarily and fully . . . to the believer in this age" (Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 109). Yet virtually every detail in the sermon is repeated in the Epistles.