Rapture Fever

Foreword
. . .
Xul
is why Jesus had promised earlier in this sermon: “Blessed are
the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). He did
not mean meek before men; He meant meek before God.
Dispensationalists until quite recently denied that this promise
was given to Christians. Yet they also taught that the kingdom
of God in Matthew 6:33 is the same kingdom promised in
Matthew 21:43. You can see this in Note 1, page 1029, of the
original Scofield Reference Bible (1909). It says that the kingdom
which was about to be transferred to the gentiles was the kingdom
of God. The note refers the reader to another note at
Matthew 6:33: identical kingdoms.
But then Scofield discussed the “beatitudes” - the “blessed
are” verses. He said they refer only to the kingdom of heaven
(Note 2, which begins on page 999). “In this sense the Sermon
on the Mount is pure law. . . .“ (p. 1000). Scofield then removed
both the duties and the inheritance from the Church:
“For these reasons the Sermon on the Mount in its primary
application gives neither the privilege nor the duty of the
Church (p. 1000). He made a distinction between the kingdom
of God (for the Church) and the kingdom of heaven (for millennial
Jews): “The kingdom of heaven will yet be set up” (p.
1029). Thus, the external blessings of God’s kingdom will return to a
Jewish Church during the millennium; the New i%tament Church
never receives them as part of hm lawful inheritance.
What very few dispensationalists realize is that more recent
dispensational theologians have abandoned the distinction
between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven.
Professor Craig Blaising of Dallas Theological Seminary writes
in the Seminary’s journal, Bibliotheca Sacra: “Many contemporary
dkpensationalists deny that there is any one dispensational
interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.” 1 Referring to the
distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of
1. Craig Blaising, “Development of Dispensationalkrnby Contemporary Dispensationalists:
Bibliotheca Sucra (July-September 1988), p. 259.