Douglas Brown, “The Glory of God and Dispensationalism: Revisiting the Sine Qua Nons of Dispensationalism”

Central Baptist Theological Seminary just published Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement. This book is a Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. that is comprised of chapters by his former colleagues and students. The first three chapters focus on the classic sine qua nons of dispensationalism.

This chapter by Douglas Brown, dean of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary, investigates whether the glory of God is one of the sine qua nons of dispensationalism.

Brown begins by noting that not all dispensationalists, especially progressive dispensationalists, agree that Ryrie’s sine qua nons (the Israel/church distinction, literal interpretation, and God’s glory as God’s fundamental purpose) mark out the essentials of dispensationalism. Brown, by contrast, defends the inclusion of the glory of God in the sine qua nons of dispensationalism.

Brown notes that the emphasis on the glory of God emerged as a response to the critique that early dispensationalists undermined the “unity of the Bible” by having two redemptive purposes for the two peoples of God: “John Walvoord responded to these charges by affirming that there is one overarching purpose of Scripture—the glory of God” (17). This was seen by dispensationalists as superior to seeing the covenant of grace as the unifying principle in Scripture.

There are two lines of critiques for including the glory of God in the sine qua nons. First, before Walvoord no dispensationalist made it an “overarching principle” and contemporaries of Walvoord, as well as dispensationalists of the following generation, have argued that the kingdom of God is the “unifying theme” of Scripture (Brown mentions Pentecost, McClain, and Blaising). Second, non-dispensationalists also emphasize the importance of God’s glory as is seen in WSC 1 and Jonathan Edwards’s The End for Which God Created the World.

In response, Brown argues that there remains something distinctive about the glory of God as a unifying principle of history that sets traditional dispensationalism apart from both progressive dispensationalism and non-dispensational theologies.

In the remainder of the chapter Brown offers seven premises regarding a dispensational understanding of God’s glory

• “Premise One: God is a glorious God” (20).
• “Premise Two: The ultimate goal of all creation is the glory of God” (22).
• “Premise Three: God wants every creature to glorify him” (23).
• “Premise Four: Glorifying God is bound to God’s self-disclosure” (25). Here Brown highlights that God has revealed himself in both general and special revelation. In special revelation God has revealed himself in the Word of God and in the Son of God.
• “Premise Five: God has chosen to reveal his glory progressively and systematically through redemptive history (i.e., through every dispensation)” (26).
• “Premise Six: The climax of God’s glorification in human history will occur at the second coming and during the millennium” (27).
• “Premise Seven: The ultimate completion of God’s glorification before all creation will occur only as he fulfils the national promises to Israel in the millennium” (28).

In light of these premises Brown concludes that “the glory of God is the overarching purpose of God” (31). He grants that this conclusion is not unique to dispensationalism, and he observes that this is the reason why many dispensationalists do no think it is a valid sine qua non of dispensationalism. Brown responds, however, that it should be retained as the “unifying principle” of dispensationalism. In addition, he argues that “the dispensational view of God’s glory is unique” in that it sees the millennial kingdom as the culmination of God’s display of his glory. He thinks that this observation has the potential to unite dispensationalists who make the kingdom the “unifying principle of the Scripture” (31).

Brown is careful in his presentation of this theme to acknowledge that adherents to other systems also recognize the importance of the glory of God, and he does a good job of demonstrating its importance as a “unifying principle” in the dispensational system. That said, I’m not sure that a single center to Scripture is necessary. If I were asked for Scripture’s central theme(s), I would provide three: glory, kingdom, and redemption. If given the opportunity to elaborate I’d observe that the kingdom theme is developed through a series of covenants which forward God’s plan of redemption—all for the purpose of bringing glory to God.

I appreciate Brown’s purpose in uniting the glory and kingdom themes by emphasizing that the glory theme culminates in the millennial kingdom. However, it does seem strange to make the millennium to the exclusion of the new creation the climax of the theme. In addition, while I agree with Brown about the fulfillment of God’s promises to the nation of Israel, it seems strange to omit the extension of God’s purposes to all the nations. From the beginning, God chose Israel to bless the nations. It seems that their omission detracts from the worldwide international scope of God’s glory.