http://mydigitalseminary.com/3-premillennialists-duke-it-out/
I appreciated Darrel Bock’s response to Jim Hamilton:
Bock: Unnecessarily divisive? Does the discussion of adult versus infant baptism apply in the same way?
This is a question that risks saying internal discussion needs to be properly ordered and really does not matter. But these internal discussion are worth airing out because they may well matter. Israel having a future (or thus having a right to the land) or Christ ruling on the earth one day (versus directly only in a new heaven and earth) are important truths. They do not determine salvation (on that we agree) but they are important teachings worth sorting out. They should not divide, on that we agree as well, but let’s not treat them as potentially irrelevant, which is what the question asked this way can risk on the other end.
As well as Joel’s response in the comments:
This is my feedback as a dispensationalist to Hamilton’s take on dispensationalist take on third order issues:
1. Experience for dispensationalist worshipping in strongly CT/NCT churches show the doctrinal exclusion goes the other way, and often much stronger. Once only needs to look at prominent strongly Reformed message boards where ministers in Hamilton’s camp share support to see that they are often apt at letting dispensationalists know that they either remain silent, or perhaps they have outlasted their welcome at their churches.
2. Dispensationalism will directly affect your hermeneutics and determine your conclusions, even on areas where eschatology is not in sight. For example, I have been to church retreat camps where the topic is on work. Sounds innocent and not really about prophecy. A minister from the Reformed tradition presented about God’s plan for the ages as the blueprint of why Christians should take seriously about work that we are doing. Having a different eschatology (or even varieties of the same millennial position) dramatically alters your understanding of it: I’ve heard one camp of amillennialists that old the earth will be burned away as saying the conents of our work is unimportant, but another camp of amillennialists that hold the earth is renewed for eternity says the type of our work on earth does matter. And on top of it, if you consider the NT Church is a continuation of OT Israel, you will end up with old-fashioned Reformed Christians’ insistence to include all the OT Israel into NT law.
