J. Dwight Pentecost. Thy Kingdom Come: Tracing God’s Kingdom Program and Covenant Promises Throughout History. SB Publications, 1990. See here to buy a later edition of this book.
J. Dwight Pentecost was a professor of Bible at Dallas Theological Seminary. This book, Thy Kingdom Comes, traces the Kingdom of God from creation through the millennial reign of Christ.
For Pentecost, God ruled before creating Adam, and God has always
been and always will be sovereign. But God created Adam to rule the
earth on God’s behalf. Adam forfeited that mission through his
disobedience, however, and God’s subsequent preservation of a committed
people, the nation of Israel, and the Davidic dynasty are all
continuations of God’s desire to rule the earth through human beings.
This goal will find its culmination in the millennial reign of Jesus
Christ on earth. Christ offered to set up such an earthly kingdom at his
first coming, but the nation of Israel rejected him. Consequently, the
Kingdom of God is currently in a different phase. Presently, it is a
spiritual kingdom in which God rules individual Christians and the
church. After the rapture of the church, God will once more offer an
earthly kingdom to Israel, and Christ will rule on earth after the
Tribulation.
I wanted to read this book to understand classic dispensational
rationales for God’s policies in the different dispensations. I had read
dispensational attempts to identify the dispensations, but little
effort to explain why God acted as God did in those dispensations.
Pentecost’s book did not meet my hopes in this area. Pentecost indeed is
a dispensationalist, in that Pentecost distinguishes between Israel and
the church and between Christ’s reign as the Davidic king and his
present reign at God’s right hand. But Pentecost does not appear to
distinguish God’s modus operandi throughout the various dispensations,
at least not radically. In each dispensation, people are right with God
by faith, but that faith is worked out and made evident through
obedience to God (i.e., law, good works). Citing Galatians 3:21,
Pentecost contends that the law does not contradict the promises of God
but coexists with them. As far as this particular book is concerned, I
did not see a model in which people were saved by works in Old Testament
times, then they were saved solely by God’s free grace in New Testament
times, but then people will have to add obedience and perseverance to
their faith to be saved after the rapture of the church. Pentecost does
acknowledge, though, that the new covenant entails God giving the
Spirit, which enables people to obey the law. That means that the new
covenant brings something new.
This book was still worth my time and effort, even if it fell short
of my expectations. Pentecost attempts to explain biblical passages as
he goes through the history of God’s kingdom. Prominent in his scenario
is his interpretation of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. For
Pentecost, the Israelite generation that rejected Christ reached a point
where they could not be forgiven. Individuals could still save
themselves from that sinful generation, but God’s judgment of that
generation was set, no turning back. God will restore Israel in the
future, but not that specific generation, since it has forfeited
forgiveness. Incidentally, Pentecost thinks that generation sealed its
fate prior to Matthew 13, which marks when Jesus’s parables began to
highlight a spiritual kingdom; Pentecost disagrees with
dispensationalists who argue that God re-offered the earthly Kingdom to
Israel in the Book of Acts.
On a related note, Pentecost argues that God’s covenant with Israel
is unconditional, yet Israel’s experience of God’s blessings within that
covenant was conditional on her obedience to the Torah. God will never
forsake God’s commitment to Israel, yet Israel’s enjoyment of covenant
blessings—-life, abiding in the land, prosperity—-depends on her
obedience to God. This is helpful and unhelpful at the same time, for
where does the covenant end and the blessings of the covenant begin?
Some of Pentecost’s points are intriguing but could have used more
development. He interprets the Parable of the Talents, for example, in
terms of Jesus judging the latter-day remnant of Israel, not God’s
judgment of Christians. This caught my attention because I remembered
talking with a Dallas Theological Seminary student who said that her
professors dismissed the idea that the Parable of the Talents
contradicts once-saved-always-saved, since the Parable concerns Israel,
not the church. I am putting Pentecost’s view on my mental shelf for
future reference, even though he could have supported it more
effectively.
Occasionally, Pentecost tossed in his social and political opinions,
as when he spoke against feminism and labor unions. I think this is a
one-sided approach to the Bible, but Pentecost’s anti-feminist stance
played a significant role in his interpretation of Genesis 3:16, where
God tells Eve that her husband will rule over her. For Pentecost, God
there reaffirms hierarchy rather than instituting it for the first time,
since Adam had violated the hierarchy by listening to his wife and
eating the fruit rather than being the spiritual leader.
Pentecost was able to explain passages that non-dispensationalists
could advance against his position. Was James in Acts 15 saying that
that particular time was when Christ was reigning as Davidic king and
including Gentiles? No, says Pentecost. Christ is not reigning as
Davidic king now but will only do so after his second coming. James is
saying that, because the Gentiles will worship God as Gentiles during
the millennium, God accepts their worship in his time, as well, without
requiring them to become Jews. Such a solution is genius, even if some
may think it a stretch.
Pentecost also offered in-depth proposals in response to questions,
such as the question of why God gave the law, and why Jesus was baptized
even though he was without sin. His solutions were edifying and made a
degree of sense.
I am open to reading other Pentecost books in the future.