by Pastor Mark Chin

Introduction

Who was John Nelson Darby and why should anyone care? J. Gordon Melton helps answer these questions in The Encyclopedia of American Religions where he notes the following: “Probably no Christian thinker in the last 200 years has so affected the way in which English-speaking Christians view the faith, and yet has received so little recognition of his contribution as John Nelson Darby.” [1] This is a curious yet telling observation. It is an observation that provides an invaluable insight into the heritage and heart of dispensationalism, a modern systematic theology that “first took shape” in the Brethren church reform movement in early nineteenth century Britain [2] and that ultimately provided the theological framework and identity of the evangelical fundamentalist movement in North America. [3] The latter, in turn, would be a movement that would give rise to such evangelical academic institutions as the Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, Grace Theological Seminary, and Biola and that would largely shape the mindset of western evangelical Christianity in the twentieth century.

By most accounts, John Nelson Darby, the controversial co-founder of the nineteenth century Brethren Movement, is considered to be the modern “father” and “chief architect” of the system of beliefs that, in many ways, came to define dispensationalism. [4] By the mid-1830’s, Darby was responsible for presenting the first modern day biblical formulation of a clear distinction between ethnic Israel and the church, a future earthly millennial kingdom, and a pretribulation rapture, all set within an eschatological scheme that divided the biblical text and narrative into separate “dispensations.” [5] However, though his teachings were quickly embraced, systematized, and popularized in America by the likes of C.I. Scofield and Lewis Sperry Chafer, forming the foundation of what has come to be known as “Classical Dispensationalism,” it would appear that the same could not be said for Darby himself or the Brethren Movement that served as the practical expression of Darby’s theological convictions and commitments. [6]

To this day many contemporary dispensationalists still go through great pains to distance dispensationalism from John Nelson Darby. Blaising, for example, in the book Progressive Dispensationalism, conspicuously fails to mention Darby in his discussion of the origins of dispensationalism except to mention in passing that the Brethren Movement, the place where dispensationalism first took shape, “generated a large volume of expositional and devotional literature, some authors of which became well known, including John Nelson Darby, Benjamin Wills Newton, George Muller, Samuel p. Tregelles, William Trotter, and Charles Henry Mackintosh.” [7] Similarly, Ryrie, in his definitive apologetic, Dispensationalism, begrudgingly gives details about Darby primarily to counter what he considers “prejudicial statements” that suggest “Dispensationalism was formulated by one of the nineteenth-century separatist movements, the Plymouth Brethren.” [8] Ryrie, attempting to distance dispensationalism from both the man and the movement, concludes, “Only one comment is necessary concerning Darby’s teachings – it was obviously not the pattern Scofield followed … Although we cannot minimize the wide influence of Darby, the glib statement that dispensationalism originated with Darby, whose system was taken over and popularized by Scofield, is not historically accurate.” [9]

How accurate is Ryrie’s statement and what is the motivation behind it? Many credit dispensationalism’s uneasy relationship with Darby to its discomfort with charges that dispensationalism is a “new (therefore heretical) theology” and also with the history of separatism and divisiveness associated with Darby’s role in the Exclusive Brethren Movement. Darby’s work on eschatology has often been accused of being the novel product, not of sound orthodox biblical study, but rather of his own personal innovation, the prophetic and apocalyptic ferment of his era, and the ideas of such contemporaries as Edward Irving, a forerunner of the charismatic movement, self-proclaimed “prophetess” Margaret MacDonald, or Spanish Jesuit Manuel de Lacunza. [10] His reputation has been equally questioned over the separatist policies of his Exclusive Brethren movement and the infamous church conflicts within the movement, conflicts with which he was directly involved and which were directly tied to both his eschatology and ecclesiology. [11] So it is that David J. MacLeod concludes the following: “Modern proponents of dispensationalism…are inclined to distance themselves from Darby in the interest of escaping the charges of recency and divisiveness.” [12]

Whatever the reasons may be, the move to separate the man from dispensationalism raises difficult questions. What was the basis of Darby’s beliefs that formed the framework for dispensationalism? Can one fully appreciate the theological contributions made to dispensationalism when they are separated from the man who made them? The goal of this paper is to examine two aspects of John Nelson Darby: the historical context of John Nelson Darby and the theological commitments and presuppositions that formed the basis of his hermeneutics and his theology. The hope is that through considering the man, his times and his theological commitments, there will be a greater understanding and appreciation of the system of theology that is connected to him.

Darby’s Historical Context

Raised as an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, educated as a lawyer, ordained as an Anglican clergyman by the Church of Ireland, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was the co-founder and leader of the Plymouth Brethren movement, a church reform movement originating in the U.K. that has been characterized as both a “Bible study” movement and “church separation” movement. [13] Though a gifted and industrious biblical scholar, well versed in the Bible’s original languages and author of an English language translation of the Bible from the original languages, Darby’s labors and endeavors were, by all accounts, not primarily those of the academic or systematic theologian. [14] It is widely accepted that the primary intent of his writing was not to provide an academic treatise or systematic theology on dispensational schemes. [15] This would be left to the likes of Scofield, Chafer, Walvoord, and Ryrie.

In many ways, Darby was first and foremost a Christian, a reformer, and a church leader of the Brethren Movement, one who attempted to address biblically the historical challenges of his era, specifically those that faced the church and the Brethren Movement. Consequently, much of his writing is of an “ad hoc nature” in which is contained a “diffuse and non-systematic treatment of theological principles.” [16] Darby was a passionate church leader whose theological contributions, including those made to the field of eschatology and ecclesiology, cannot be separated from his labors in the Brethren Church Movement of his day. Darby’s views did not arise in an academic vacuum. For this reason, it is helpful to consider the historical and ecclesiastical context of Darby’s contributions to Dispensationalism as well as Darby’s conversion, two critical contributors that helped shape the emphases of Darby’s theology.

Darby’s Times

The nineteenth century was a time of political, economic, social, and religious change and upheaval in the United Kingdom. [17] By the turn of the century the industrial revolution had begun, the seeds of modernism, naturalism, historical criticism, and evolution would shortly blossom both in and outside of Christian theological circles, and the weaknesses and inconsistencies of the established church of the U.K. (the Anglican or “State” church), especially its worldliness, spiritual dryness, and political compromises, were being exposed and questioned on an unprecedented level. [18] At the same time, the American Revolution (1775), the Irish Rebellion (1798), the horrors of the French Revolution (1789) and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) made Europe and the U.K. fertile ground for all manner of apocalyptic theories and end-time biblical prophetic preoccupations both in Catholic and Protestant circles. [19]

Of these times Sweetnam and Griven note the following: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge described this period as ‘an age of anxiety from the crown to the hovel, from the cradle to the coffin,” and his words accurately capture the pervasiveness of social uncertainty and upheaval…In this ferment, speculation about the future of the world turned many to a renewed study of prophetic Scripture. It is this context that provided a background for the development of Darby’s ideas.” Though Darby would become a futurist in his eschatology, his labors would always be overshadowed by a pressing conviction that Christ’s return was most imminent and that he was witnessing the very end of the church age or dispensation, as evidenced by the apostasy of the Established Church, something that weighed heavily on Darby from the start of his church ministry.

Prior to his conversion, Darby, the son of English protestant Aristocrats living in Ireland, had been enrolled as a classics student at the Anglican Trinity College, Dublin. Trinity at this time was considered to be “ a centre of millenarian ferment,” a place where Catholic amillennialism was seriously questioned and where members of the faculty expressed an interest in Biblical typology and a future restoration of the Jews. [20] In 1825, Darby began full time service in the Church of Ireland. Though in retrospect, Darby states he did not possess Christ as Savior during his early years as an ordained Anglican priest, he most certainly became deeply disillusioned with the worldliness and lack of spiritual integrity of both the Catholic and Anglican Church. [21]

It was not lost on the young Irish clergyman at that time that there was a significant disconnect between the church as portrayed in the Bible and the politically minded “state” churches of the day. [22] In a letter written to the Archbishop of Dublin and the clergy of the church of Ireland, Darby, then age 26, commenting on the political and worldly preoccupations of both the Anglican and the Catholic church, identified a fundamental conflict of interest in the political mandate of the “Established Churches” (i.e. the official state church) of the day. [23] The fundamental design and mandate of both churches, as political and worldly institutions consumed with “the glory of this world”, placed the headship of the Pope and the king over the headship of Christ, whose kingdom was self-admittedly, “not of this world.” [24] Even at this early date, one can see Darby’s conscience wrestling with a political and worldly institution that was blatantly unbiblical in its behavior and explicitly built upon amillennial and postmillennial replacement theology, a theology that embraced the present church-state as the New Israel of Christ. The direct connection between eschatology and practical ecclesiology was not lost on Darby. Years later he would conclude that “ one of the underlying reasons why the Church, as the visible ‘pillar and foundation of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15), had fallen into ruin was that she had confused her own raison d’etre with that of Israel.” [25]

Darby’s Conversion

These issues weighed heavily upon his soul during this time. Within a short period of time the disillusioned Darby would abandon the Anglican Church as he looked to the Scriptures for answers. Looking back at that season, Darby stated the following: “When I left the Episcopal church, there was no one with whom I could walk; I was led on and guided simply by the word of God.” [26] Darby would find resolution and clarity in the Scripture during a time of convalescence following a riding accident on October 1827. In retrospect, Darby assigned the assurance of his salvation to this time. His testimony of that event is most revealing, demonstrating the rudimentary themes that would dominate his life’s work:

During my solitude conflicting thoughts increased; but much exercise of soul had the effect of causing the scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me. I had always owned them to be the word of God. When I came to understand that I was united to Christ in heaven, and that, consequently, my place before God was represented by His own, I was forced to the conclusion that it was no longer a question with God of this wretched “I” which had wearied me during six or seven years, in presence of the requirements of the law. It then became clear to me that the church of God, as He considers it, was composed only of those who were so united to Christ, whereas Christendom, as seen externally, was really the world, and could not be considered as “the church,” save as regards the responsibility attaching to the position which it professed to occupy – a very important thing in its place. At the same time, I saw that the Christian, having his place in Christ in heaven, has nothing to wait for save the coming of the Savior, in order to be set, in fact, in the glory which is already his portion in Christ. [27]

From this time onwards, the complete authority of the scriptures, the believer’s spiritual union with Christ in heaven (not on earth), the true identity of the church of God as a heavenly entity (as opposed to Christendom), and the anticipation of Christ’s return would become themes and commitments that would dominate Darby’s ministry in the Brethren movement, a ministry that would attempt to harmonize theology, eschatology, and ecclesiology in the authoritative truth of Scripture and in the assembly of true believers.

[1] Ronald M. Henzel, Darby, Dualism, and the Decline of Dispensationalism: Reassessing the Nineteenth-Century Roots of a Twentieth-Century Prophetic Movement for the Twenty-First Century, (Tucson, Arizona:Fenestra Books, 2003), 49.

[2] Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 10.

[3] Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 808, 811.

[4] Ibid., 808.

[5] Vlach, Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths,(LA, CA: Theological Studies Press, 2008), 8.

[6] George, M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalsim 1870-1925, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 46.

[7] Blaising and Bock, 10.

[8] Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism: Revised and Expanded, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2007), 69.

[9] Ryrie, 79.

[10] Henzel, 58-66.

[11] Jonathan D. Burnham, A Story of Conflict: The Controversial Relationship between Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby, (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster Press, 2004), 150-231.

[12] David J. MacLeod, “Walter Scott, A Link in Dispensationalism between Darby and Scofield?” Bibliotheca Sacra 153 (April 1996): 156.

[13] Paul Richard Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby, (Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2007), 67, 68, 76.

[14] Henzel, 49.

[15] Wilkinson, 100.

[16] Mark Sweetnam and Crawford Gribben, “J.N. Darby and the Irish Origins of Dispensationalism,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society  52 (September 2009): 570.

[17] Tourette, 2:1179.

[18] Ibid., 2:1179, 1185.

[19] Henzel notes that the entire British ecclesiastical scene of the 1820’s and ‘30s was consumed with an interest in biblical prophecy as evidenced by the vast bibliography of prophetic studies from this era. Henzel, 58. Wilkinson, 69-72.

[20] Wilkinson., 73-75.

[21] Ibid., 70,76.

[22] J.N. Darby, “Consideration Addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin and the Clergy Who Signed the Petition to the House of Commons for Protection” in The Collected Writings of J.N. Darby, edited by William Kelly, (Reprint, Sunbury, PA: Believers Bookshelf, 1971), 1:1-19.

[23] Darby, Consideration Addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin…, CW 1:1-19.

[24] Ibid.,1:8-9.

[25] Wilkinson, 104.

[26] Ibid., 105.

[27] Henzel, 71.