It is sometimes shocking to find out what people believe about Christ. Most cults and false religions see him as either a very good person, or that He was a prophet, or even that He was the Son of God. None of these are necessarily wrong, however, they fall short of the true identity of our Lord. Jesus himself made the exclusive claim that salvation is only possible through him. He did so by claiming that He and the Father were one. This is to say that Jesus of Nazareth and God the Father are equal in importance. Simply stated, Christ Jesus did claim to be God.

In many ways Christians find themselves in the midst of a fierce battle, i.e. the battle for the deity of Jesus Christ. In order to prove the deity of our Lord, we will have a look at the Bible's interpretation of the person of Christ. In doing so, it should become evident that He possessed the attributes of the living God. We will also look at some of Christ's claims regarding himself. The Gospels are replete of evidence that Christ claimed to be God. Not only did He claim to be God, but He also proved that He was God through the many miraculous deeds done by him during his time on earth. The resurrection being not the least of these. It would become obvious that these findings are in direct opposition to any cult or false religion that does not believe that Jesus is God.

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A while ago I introduced a subject that may have rattled a few theological cages — the role of the Decalogue in evangelism. This response is quite understandable. As Christians we should all have great respect and reverence for the entire Word of God (Ac. 20:27). We believe that the Word is inerrant and infallible and that it is therefore applicable to, and sufficient to all people of all times (Ps. 19). When we hear phrases like the “obsolescence of the Law of Moses” or the “end of the Law,” it does have a somewhat unsettling effect.

However, this need not be the case. What I introduced in that article is no new concept. Rather, it is something that all Christians of different hermeneutical stripes must agree on, albeit, to varying degrees. For this reason, covenantalists (who typically believe that the Law of Moses is still intact in some ways today) and dispensationalists (who argue that the Mosaic Law in its entirety has been served in the OT) must all agree to an assumed level of breakage or disconnect with the Old Law. Some obvious examples would be for instance that we don’t cast lots anymore to discern the will of the Lord (Lev. 16:8). Rather we commit all things to God in prayer (Ps. 37:5; Phil. 4:6-7). We also don’t require young, unmarried men to marry their deceased brother’s childless widow (Deut. 25:5-10) to propagate his lineage. Rather, the NT reveals a great level of freedom in who we marry as long as we marry in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39).
 
Differences like the ones mentioned above highlight the fact that there is clearly a level of disconnect between OT and NT times. Any study of such differences involves studying the “continuity vs. discontinuity” between the two testaments. Some Christians do not see as much disconnect between the two testaments as others might. As already stated, this is typically true of covenantalists and dispensationalist. However, even among covenantalists there are disagreements as to the level of discontinuity between the two testaments (classic covenantalism vs. new covenantalism), as there are disagreements among dispensationalists (classical dispensationalism vs. progressive dispensationalism).

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​While in the past the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa (DRCSA) confessed the authority of the Bible as the Word of God, many within the Church today do not see the Bible as authoritative on all matters. Prevailing views on the Pauline epistles is a prime example. In many ways, Paul is viewed as “a product of his time who could only describe the awesome reality of God’s saving presence in limited (patriarchal) language”

The well-known South African theologian Andrew Murray, himself a member of the DRCSA, reacted as far back as 1862, shortly after the midway mark of the 19th-century, to the large-scale rationalism that had been advocated in Dutch theology faculties and warned against the influence it may have had on fellow ministers in the DRCSA. This battle where the authority of Scripture was at the centre became so severe that it was not able to escape the Cape courtrooms.

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You won’t find the word “disproportionism” in any dictionary worth its salt, so feel free to stop the googling. I admit that this is not the queen’s English, but in a world where “isms” abound it is important for us to know about the dangers of them all, whether “relativism,” “anti-supernaturalism,” “post-modernism,” or whatever other dubious “isms” may exist that are worthy of refutation.
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Such is the case with the topic I’d like to address in this article. For some reading this, the term “Hyper-Calvinism” might no yet have entered their sphere of cognizance, however there are subtle ways in which they might already have been influenced by it. In broad strokes, Hyper-Calvinism is a misrepresentation of “good” Calvinistic teachings or tenets, the majority of which I personally can vouch for. Within a Calvinistic framework, these teachings, although biblical, get inflated, magnified, or for the lack of a better word, get “pumped-up” to the point of being disproportionate, leading to what I like to call "theological disproportionism.”

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The New Testament sign of the believer is undoubtedly the sign of baptism. But what exactly does this look like? Some have said that the Old Testament, 8th-day circumcision is what controls our understanding of baptism and would therefore see it as something that is done with babies as a sign of the New Covenant. They would argue that since circumcision was the sign of the Old Covenant, so infant baptism — which seems to be the best possible transition from Old Covenant times to New Covenant Times (New Testament times) — would be the best possible transition from circumcision to baptism.

However, is this a good deduction to make with regards to the church’s current obligation to signify salvation through baptism (Matt. 28:19)? Is the church’s present-day practice of baptism mainly a vestige of a period in salvific history that, historically speaking, was symbolised by males only? That could hardly be the case in light of New Testament examples
of believers, whether male or female, who were baptised after coming to faith in the Lord Jesus.

The argument between infant baptism (paedobaptism) and believer’s baptism by immersion (credobaptism) therefore mainly centres around this issue that involves its definition in New Testament times. If we define it in terms of a rehashed, reshuffled, or changed 8th-day circumcision, then it could perhaps make sense that babies should be baptised. But if it can be proven that it became the New Covenant sign of the believer, which is really a sign in its own right, then one could make a strong case for believer’s baptism. 

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To a large extent dispensationalism is misunderstood by those who oppose it. This may be the result of the application of a faulty hermeneutic in Bible interpretation. Since our hermeneutic drives our interpretation we need to make sure that it lines up with Scripture. If not, the results can be hazardous. The following aims at displaying the hermeneutical features of the dispensational system. As a system, dispensationalism consists of a solid method of interpretation; therefore adopting its principles of interpretation is valuable. We will look at the meaning of “hermeneutics.” It is essential to understand what we are talking about when we use this term. Subsequently we will look at the key tenets of dispensational hermeneutics. This will be done by contrasting and critiquing some of the views contrary to the one applied in dispensationalism.

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