Conditional Offer of the Kingdom?

[Jaymin Allen]

Have any heard of an alleged conditional offer of a physical kingdom at Jesus' triumphant entry as proposed by dispensationalists? Had my first exposure yesterday as a dispensational friend was attempting to convince me that if the Jews accepted Christ at the offering of the kingdom, then Christ would have ushered in a 1000 year physical kingdom at that time.

I was also told to read "Greatness of the Kingdom" by Mclain.

Does anybody know anything about this conditional offer and the subsequent deferment a physical kingdom as expressed by traditional dispensationalists?

 

[eqdj]

That's what I was taught when I attended Calvary Chapel.
If the Jews would've accepted Christ as their Messiah that would've ushered in the Messianic Kingdom. That's Plan A.
We're living in the Church Age, Plan B.

It's what CC teaches "matter-of-fact", i've never heard them reference anyone.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

This is typical dispensational teaching. Accordingly, in dispensationalism, the NT church was not foreseen by the Old Testament and is thus a parenthesis in God's plan for Israel.

 

[Iconoclast]

that if the Jews accepted Christ at the offering of the kingdom, then Christ would have ushered in a 1000 year physical kingdom at that time.

there is no if.....
Jesus did inaugurate the kingdom;

20And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

21Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

it did not come as they thought it would.

[ 43Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

44And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

45And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
/QUOTE]

 

[CharlieJ]

Yes, Jaymin, that's the basic gist of it. I think we need to be careful, though, not to charge Dispensationalists with teaching a "Plan A" vs. "Plan B" theology. That's not really fair. Calvinists teach the conditional free offer of the gospel - that is, God sincerely offers the gospel to people who He knows will not receive it. The fact that those people do reject it doesn't make their condemnation an unforeseen "Plan B". So, hypothetically, God could have made an offer of the kingdom knowing that they would refuse it.

However, I think it is very dubious that Christ actually made any such offer. As Iconoclast mentioned, Jesus constantly taught in what the kingdom consisted, but those who heard him misunderstood him anyway. So, I think Dispensationalists make the same mistake as the Jews who rejected Jesus; they fail to ascertain the purpose of the Incarnation.