Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Supplemental Lesson # 3: Bullinger, Welch, Coles, and the Acts 28:28 Dispensational Frontier (Grand Rapids, MI 7/5/15)
To download the MP3 from this lesson click here.
For a PDF copy of the notes click here. (Notes will be shared after a technical problem is resolved.)
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Are the notes available?
ReplyDeleteHi Jared. Yes the notes are available at the following link.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gracelifebiblechurch.com/SundaySchool/ChurchHistory/2015/071215/SupplementalLesson3.pdf
Thank you for that. I note that the link has not been updated on the referring
DeletePage; and that page may be found through Wikipedia if one looks up hyperdispensationalism and goes to resources. Thank you
http://www.teleiosministries.com/ewbullinger.html
ReplyDeleteHi Bryan,
The above page has links to SCANNED EDITIONS of the THINGS TO COME journal. Glad I did not cut my copies up for scanning. I will have to compare mine with the scans sometime.
You may also find it by googling JJB Coles and then locating Pastor Bryan's pdf file from 2015 (who would have thought that word would ever be a verb?!!! Thanks so much for the lesson. Perses Rathert
ReplyDeleteA rather good character assassination of Charles Welch. Except that it is not true in the least. First, Bullinger was unwell for two months in 1907 and didn't submit How To Enjoy The Bible to the publisher until after he recovered. This was after both the Feb article by JJB Cole and his own April article about Acts 28 and the epistles. So there would have been time for Bullinger to make changes to the text if he felt them necessary. Proof of this is recorded in the April and July editions of Things to Come under the "Editor's Table" section. Second, few Acts 28 dispensational articles were written in the year 1908, but the theme is taken up again in the 1909 series, first by JJB Cole in Feb 1909 and then by Welch in April 1909. In the end of his first article, Welch states, "We are fully aware that abler writers than ourselves have given expression to similar things, but having laid the foundation, we hope to go forward in this wonderful field of research..." Also, in the June dispensational article, he states, "In Feb.,1909 of Things To Come will be found two helpful articles by "J.J.B.C.", to which we would direct our readers." So Welch never tries to create the illusion that he is the originator of the Acts 28 idea, which Bullinger and others had formulated several years prior. Welch is simply the one who ironed out the contradictions of the idea as expressed in earlier editions of Things To Come. One such contradiction was that the Acts epistles had been divided, yet the writers in Things To Come were still expressing the hope of The Body using Thessalonians and the idea of meeting the Lord in the air. So, Welch did not try to take credit for the work of others as is so brazenly suggested here, nor did he ever try to perpetrate some fraud to bolster his own reputation.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it exactly that you think is not true in the least?
Delete"So there would have been time for Bullinger to make changes to the text if he felt them necessary." This fails to take into consideration that they did not have computers with which such changes could be made quickly. Something that had gone to press in that day would have been expensive and laborious to make a minor change given the intent the book was to serve. It is no surprise that the book was allowed to be produced as it was. It also is no surprise that articles were published after the fact not fully in line with the fact given that they would have been written several months ahead of their being published if not years. But beyond that Welch's autobiography demonstrates either an unfortunate presentation or Welch's memory had enhanced itself and maybe he wanted to throw a jab at Bullinger's niece who would not let Welch near the steering wheel of the journal nor have more than one article of his included in the Companion Bible.
DeleteWelch never edited the Things To Come journal.
ReplyDeleteI agree that was an error on my part derived from reading Juanita Carey's biography on EWB.
ReplyDeleteI thought I should add the comment to this thread.
DeleteIf Welch never edited Things to Come, then the omission of JJB Coles's name from the article later published in Foundations of Dispensational Truth cannot be laid at the feet of Welch. Welch never tries to take credit for the Acts 28 idea or the chronological division of Paul's epistles. In his autobiography, he is referencing Bullinger teaching both a canonical order and a chronological order, two ideas which completely contradict themselves. This dual perspective by Bullinger is displayed in How to Enjoy the Bible and Things to Come. So, Welch, at the request of Bullinger starts writing a series of dispensational articles in Things to Come in April 1909 where he begins to iron these differences out while also publishing his own journal, The Berean Expositor, where he expresses the same ideas. This is after the 1908 meeting with Bullinger in which Bullinger acknowledges Welch as having changed his mind, not as is assumed regarding the division of the epistles, but the results of dividing the epistles. If any blame is to be laid at the feet of Welch, it is that his autobiography is brief and doesn't explain in-depth the evolution of the Acts 28 doctrine, with which most of his readers would likely already be familiar with. If he was trying to take credit for the Acts 28 epistle division though, surely something as prominent as that would be articulated. The whole notion of self-aggrandizement is an attitude completely foreign to Welch. Trying to portray him otherwise is meant only an as attack upon the messenger for lack of strength against the message.
ReplyDeleteThanks for he explication.
ReplyDelete"If Welch never edited Things to Come, then the omission of JJB Coles's name from the article later published in Foundations of Dispensational Truth cannot be laid at the feet of Welch."
Granted, absolutely.
So you are saying (to clarify) that Bullinger was holding to the canonical presentation of the epistles theologically as well chronologically in contradiction to each other and realized this with Welch's challenge? The result being Bullinger asking Welch to write the series of articles to demonstrate the importance of taking the epistles chronologically only and rectify Bullinger's error?
Yes, that is exactly it. Bullinger supported a false notion of the Pauline epistles being in a canonical order (some for doctrine, some reproof, some correction), while also holding that they should be divided chronologically. In Things To Come, he demonstrates the validity of the chronological position but it was Welch that showed the canonical position to be a contradiction to this. The chronological position does away with the doctrine/reproof/correction idea, which has no legitimate basis and was based simply on the wording of 2 Tim 3:16. Once that arbitrary structure is removed, then the message of each epistle could be read without preconceptions and the importance of the prison epistles shown. No believer in the Acts period, which was all pre-prison epistles, ever entertained the idea of being a part of a heavenly company associated with the living Christ in the heavenly holiest of all amongst principalities and powers. The Acts church sought the return of the Lord to the earth for Israel and those Gentiles grafted in by faith, which hope cannot be realized if there is no temple to be desecrated by the abomination of desolation. The One Body is the interim program awaiting a hope which will be fulfilled at the expulsion of Satan and the disobedient principalities from heaven. Once Satan is exiled to the earth, the final Gentile ruler will be supernaturally supported by him in a quest to rid the earth of God's earthly people, which quest will finally be stopped by the second coming of Christ. The plan for the earth finally progresses during the Millenium, at least insofar as Israel's task of enlightening the Gentiles, while the void left by the disobedient heavenly principalities will be filled by the One Body. After the Millenium, the Body, associated with Christ as the one new man (aner...husband), joins Israel and company (the bride), the marriage of the Lamb takes place, the Heavenly Jerusalem descends to the earth. Ultimately, Satan, whom we presume possesses immortality, must be righteously destroyed if ever man is to trust God's gift of immortality, and the long sweep of the ages, which seem like an eternity to us as mortals, is brought to a close with the redemption of both heaven and earth. That God should resolve all problems, heavenly and earthly, through the medium of His lowliest creature, man, demonstrates His limitless wisdom and power over the prideful being described in both Isa 14 and Ezek 28.
ReplyDelete