John Nelson Darby (1800-82)
Although Darby did not acknowledge his sources most scholars point to Irving as a very significant influence on his developing views. Darby was a charismatic figure, a dominant personality, a persuasive speaker and had a zeal for mission regarding his dispensationalist beliefs. He personally founded Plymouth Brethren churches as far away as Germany, Switzerland, France and the United States, and translated the entire Scriptures.
The churches Darby planted with the seeds of a separatist premillennial dispensationalism, in turn sent missionaries to Africa, the West Indies, Australia and New Zealand, so that by the time of his death in 1882, around 1500 Plymouth Brethren churches had already been founded world-wide.
His views also came to influence the Bible and Prophetic Conferences associated with Niagara and other centres in North America from 1875. The shift of interpretation that Darby brought has been noted:
Roy Coad, writing a history of the Brethren Movement, admits that,
For the traditional view of the Revelation, another was substituted.
James Barr is considerably more forthright and argues that premillennial dispensationalism was,
…individually invented by J. N. Darby… concocted in complete contradiction to all main Christian tradition…
It is almost certain (and Coad claims this) that the ‘futurist view’ of the end times, so evident in Darby’s writings can be traced to the work Irving had translated: “The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty”.
Clarence Bass concludes that with respect to Darby”s views that:
Such a concept is singularly missing from historic Christian theology… Darby is pointedly correct in stating that this came to him as a new truth, since it is not to be found in theological literature prior to his proclamation of it. It is not that exegetes prior to his time did not see a covenant between God and Israel, or a future relation of Israel to the millennial reign, but they always viewed the church as the continuation of God’s single program of redemption begun in Israel.
It is here that we note an important point is being made:
- Darby does not see the church as the continuation of God’s single redemptive program, rather the church becomes a parenthesis in the work of God. The purposes of God were centred on Israel (past) and will again (future).
Darby began publishing his prophetic speculations in 1831. Both he and Edward Irving began to postulate two stages to Christ”s imminent return. First, there would be an invisible ‘appearing’ when Christians would meet Christ in the air and be removed from the earth, a process which came to be known as ‘the rapture of the saints’. Then with the restraining presence of the Holy Spirit removed from the world, the antiChrist would arise and the seven year tribulation would begin. His rule would finally be crushed only by the public ‘appearing’ of Jesus Christ.
Darby had an increasing influence on other venues including the Powerscourt Conferences in Dublin held in the 1830”s (he was originally an ordained Anglican priest in Dublin), in New York in 1868, London in 1873, Chicago in 1875, and then culminating in the Bible Conference Movement and the Niagara Conferences of 1883 to 1897. Regular topics covered included speculations on the Second Coming.
Regarding the rapture, Darby admitted as much that his doctrine of the rapture was an innovation, the result of ‘express revelation’, indeed he seemed quite pleased with the reaction to it.
Although his influence on Brethrenism in Britain waned, Darby’s influence in North America increased and he made seven journeys there over a twenty year period. It has been estimated that he spent 40% of his time in the United States during those 20 years, and had considerable influence on leaders such as James H. Brookes, Dwight L. Moody, William Blackstone and C. I. Scofield, as well as on emerging evangelical Bible Schools and Prophecy Conferences.
George Marsden, in his history of the rise of fundamentalism between 1870 and 1930, says (and note the names he lists):
This new form of premillennial teaching, imported from England, first spread in America through prophecy conferences where the Bible was studied intently. Summer conferences, a newly popular form of vacation in the age of the trains, were particularly effective. Most importantly, Dwight L. Moody had sympathies with the broad outlines of dispensationalism and had as his closest lieutenants dispensationalist leaders such as Reuben A. Torrey (1856-1928), James M. Gray (1851-1925), C. I. Scofield (1843-1921), William J. Erdman (1833-1923), A.C. Dixon (1854-1925), and A. J. Gordon (1836-1895). These men were activist evangelists who promoted a host of Bible conferences and other missionary and evangelistic efforts. They also gave the dispensationalist movement institutional permanence by assuming leadership of the new Bible institutes such as the Moody Bible Institute (1886), the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (1907), and the Philadelphia College of the Bible (1914). The network of related institutes that soon sprang up became the nucleus for much of the important fundamentalist movement of the twentieth century. Dispensationalist leaders, in fact, actively organised this antimodernist effort. Notably, they oversaw the publication between 1910-1915 of the widely distributed twelve-volume paperback series, The Fundamentals.
If it had not been for the connection with these influential leaders in North America, Dispensationalism might well have simply become a minor perspective on eschatology. And it is probably the Scofield Bible that became the singularly most powerful tool in enabling a Dispensational interpretation of Scripture to take root.
The reason for giving the amount of time that I am on addressing Dispensationalism / the Rapture is not simply the widespread belief in the Rapture but the influence this type of eschatology has had. Dispensationalist type of thinking has also influenced other theologies and we often end up with Dispensationalism with a twist. Of course someone might decide that the approach is also biblical.
So not all might believe in a Rapture but the popularity of the Left Behind series shows the effect this approach to Scripture has. End-time scenarios are a great fascination!
The widespread influence (to summarise what has gone before) flows through to where we are this time in history in this way:
- Irving and Darby at the roots.
- Then an influence on D.L. Moody the very influential north American revivalist (most influential?).
- The publication of the Scofield Bible (and off-shoots such as Charles Ryrie study Bible) where the way to interpret Scripture is placed within the very pages of Scripture.
- The reaction to liberalism and the publication of the twelve-volume paperback series, The Fundamentals (1910-15) – influenced greatly by Dispensational teachers.
- Pentecostalism which borrowed its eschatology from Dispensationalism. Even great parts of the Charismatic movement have done the same.
In the mid-90s I studied the eschatology of the new church movement (a MS is available) and noted in a presentation on the restoration of the church a question in the margin (what about Laodicea?). This showed the tension. The eschatology that was assumed by the person writing the note was Dispensationalist (Laodicea being the ‘lukewarm’ church and a description of the last church was understood to be a letter to the church in the final era before the return of Chris) but the presentation was on the restoration of the church. That tension was expressed in the note. I see this again in places today. Revival, restoration of the five-fold ministry, but no consistent teaching on eschatology either to moderate the (over-the-top-optimistic) belief or to counteract the pessimism of Dispensationalism.
Let us make a little jump ahead and see the danger of these interpretations. Is the Bible being looked at and wrestled with regard to historical context and meaning, or is it the current scenario that the Bible has to line up with. What sometimes is called newspaper exegesis:
Charisma magazine published an article in April 1991, entitled ‘The Gulf War and Beyond: Respected Church Leaders Address Questions About War, Peace, Prophecy and the Middle East’.
One leader interviewed in this article said this:
Isaiah 21 speaks of the fall of Babylon. Verse 1 mentions a storm coming from the desert: “As whirlwinds in the South (the Negeb) sweep through, so it [the judgment of God by hostile armies] comes from the desert” (Amp.). This could be Operation Desert Storm!
[For those that remember the war in 1991 was called ‘Operation Desert Storm’! The name given then was the judged to be the same as the one in Isaiah.]
At first glance, this may sound quite reasonable; there seem to be some remarkable parallels between Isaiah 21 and the Gulf War. But look again. Is this what Isaiah had in mind?
The parallels are coincidental… and once the war was over the connection was conveniently forgotten. This moving on to the next ‘news’ article has always been present in these approaches. I noted earlier how Napoleon Bonaparte was understood to be the antiChrist – not a suggestion that is made today for obvious reasons.
Why should the terrors of Revelation be around the corner… why not past? Why not suggest that the fulfilment was the bubonic plague that killed 1/3 of the population of Europe… or why not another interpretation all-together?