Hyper-dispensationalism

Hyper-dispensationalism (sometimes called ultra-dispensationalism) is a teaching that dates the beginning of the Christian dispensation to some time during the ministry of Paul, either at the beginning of his ministry (mid-Acts dispensationalism) or with the Jewish rejection of the gospel during Paul's captivity (Acts 28 dispensationalism). This distinction makes most of the writings of the New Testament into documents of the dispensation before the one the church is currently in. Only Paul’s letters from the second captivity would then be written for the true church age. Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and the Pastorals are the only parts of scripture that apply to the heavenly people of God, the church. There are many consequences to this view: it requires most of the New Testament to be interpreted as referring not to the church, but to an ethnically-identified people of God, as in the Old Testament.

Hyper-dispensationalism in various forms was prominent in Los Angeles at the time of Biola's founding. Bullingerism (named for E. W. Bullinger) had advocates like R. A. Hadden, who was closely associated with the work of the Bible Institute before R. A. Torrey and the new doctrinal statement forced him out.

Los Angeles hyper-dispensationalists tended toward separation from other established churches, viewing their own teachings as distinctive enough to require clear lines of division from all other churches. They viewed water baptism, for instance, as inappropriate for the present dispensation. Hyper-dispensationalists viewed other churches as a mission field and recruited from their ranks when possible. The Bible Institute's interdenominational work was an attractive arena for them, and Biola's leadership had to take steps to exclude hyper-dispensationalist teaching from its work.

Other Los Angeles hyper-dispensationalists included Adolph Ernst Knoch (1874-1965) and Vladimir M. Gelesnoff, editors of the magazine Unsearchable Riches, whose work led to the extremely literal Concordant Bible project. This group came to be increasingly identified with the doctrine of universal salvation and the consequent denial of an eternal hell. R. A. Torrey engaged in a pamphlet war with them around 1924.

This kind of dispensationalism specializes in recognizing distinctions in biblical terminology which most readers have not previously observed. For instance, the "Kingdom of Heaven" and the "Kingdom of God," thought by most readers to be two names for one thing, are considerered by some dispensationalists to be two different things. A. E. Knoch taught that "in Christ" pointed to a different relationship from "in the Lord." Christians are free from the law "in Christ," but slaves to God "in the Lord." This distinction further explains why women are free and equal with men "in Christ," but submissive to them "in the Lord." (October 1917 issue of Unsearchable Riches)