How Does Historic Premillennialism Differ from Dispensational Premillennialism?

With this post I want to address how Historic Premillennialism differs from Dispensational Premillennialism. I have found that there is some confusion on this matter. Sometimes at the beginning of my eschatology classes I’ll ask the students, “What are the main issues that separate Historic Premillennialism and Dispensational Premillennialism?” More often than not, there is no clear understanding on this. The problem is not with them but with an overall lack of clarity on this issue.

Recently, there was a book published, A Case for Historic Premillennialism: An Alternative to “Left Behind” Eschatology (Baker, 2009). A compilation of scholars presented the case for Historic Premillennialism and a case against pre-tribulationism often associated with Dispensationalism. Although there were some helpful chapters in the book, there was no clear explanation of how Historic Premillennialism (hereafter HP) differs specifically from Dispensational Premillennialism (hereafter DP). If one thing came through it was that HP does not hold to a pre-trib rapture. But that’s not good enough when it comes to distinguishing the two camps since the timing of the rapture is not the primary issue that separates HP from DP. There are some dispensationalists who are post-trib too. So we need to dig deeper on this one.

There are three major beliefs that I believe separate HP from all forms of DP:

First, historic premillennialists believe in New Testament priority in which the New Testament interprets/reinterprets the OT. As the leading HP proponent, George Ladd has stated:

The Old Testament must be interpreted by the New Testament. In principle it is quite possible that the prophecies addressed originally to literal Israel describing physical blessings have their fulfillment exclusively in the spiritual blessings enjoyed by the church. It is also possible that the Old Testament expectation of a kingdom on earth could be reinterpreted by the New Testament altogether of blessings in the spiritual realm.   Continue at Mike Vlach