by Pastor Mark Chin

Darby’s Hermeneutical Commitments

Of Darby’s primary commitments, Wilkinson notes the following: “Darby’s eschatology was rooted in his devotion to Jesus Christ and his study of the Bible.” [28] The validity of this observation is abundantly clear to anyone who has read Darby’s writings. They are saturated with Scripture, consumed with the supremacy of Christ. Of all Darby’s commitments, four that seemed to inform much of his thinking were his commitment to the absolute authority, sufficiency, and perfection of Scripture as God’s direct communication to man, his commitment to the supremacy of Christ as Lord of all, his commitment to the believer’s spiritual union with Christ in heaven as the defining aspect of a true believer’s existence and that of the church, and his commitment to the distinction between the metaphysical sphere of “heaven” and “earth.”

Scripture

For Darby, the God of the Bible was the starting point of all things. As such, Scripture is “ a revelation of what He is and the way to Him.” [29] It is a “direct communication from God,” and therefore it commands “absolute authority”. [30] It is unique, without comparison or peer, in that it is the only “divinely given record of God’s thoughts.” [31] Of its composition, Darby was firmly committed to the inspiration of Scripture, stating that, “The facts (of Scripture) are put together by the Holy Ghost.” [32] Consequently, he was quick to defend its “perfection” and inerrancy, in both structure and detail. [33] As such, Darby heralded “the revealed written word of God” as “the only source and standard of truth.” [34] Though incredibly well-educated and well-read, demonstrating an in-depth understanding of German rationalism, higher criticism, naturalism, and evolution, Darby, as evidenced by his collected writings, held no substitute for Scripture as the divine authority and the divine gold standard by which all things must be measured and upon which all things must be built, especially the endeavor of interpreting Scripture or addressing alleged heresy.

That being said, Darby did not hold Scripture to be some sort of inanimate tool, encyclopedia, or reference book whose details were to be neatly dissected and categorized, to be scientifically and systematically ordered to prove a point, as is often attributed to the likes of Scofield and Torrey, Darby’s dispensational step-sons. [35] This is, perhaps, something that served as an embarrassment to his American successors. Darby believed Scripture to be, in whole and in part, the living word of God that transformed lives by communicating the grace of God. “It (Scripture) is the beauty and blessedness of scripture as the word of God to work by its own power, and convey, through grace, its divine contents to the heart.” [36] As will be shown, it is this comprehensive commitment to Scripture as the living Word of God that informed all of Darby’s work. In turn, much of Darby’s work was focused on how this living Word was to be properly handled, understood, and lived. Scientific and systematic categorization was of secondary importance to Darby as reflected in his writings.

The Interpretation of Scripture

This was certainly true with regard to how Darby handled the endeavor of interpretation. If Scripture for Darby was God’s perfect and direct authoritative communication to man, then one thing was and is certain. Natural man is a sinner, the world is fallen, and both are in opposition to God, under His judgment, and incapable of rightly understanding His revealed truth on their own. “It is the foundation truth of Scripture that man is a sinner …” concluded Darby. [37] Furthermore, “The history of the Bible is the history of original sin; the doctrine of the Bible is the doctrine of God’s putting it away forever.” [38] In light of the Creator/creation distinction, and even more so in light of the sin of man, Darby was committed to upholding large and opposing distinctions between the things of God and the things of man, between what he would describe as “heavenly” and “earthly.”

Such distinctions shaped much of Darby’s hermeneutical approach to Scripture. In as much as philosophy, science, or higher criticism were the products of the minds of sinful men, Darby was vehemently opposed to rendering to them any authority over Scripture or any role in the interpretation of Scripture. For Darby, “ … conscience being above revelation is nonsense … Conscience is man; and a conscience above revelation is man above God … Man is not judge of the way. He has received every kind of lie as God …” Illumination, then, by the Holy Spirit, the author of the Word itself, was for Darby the only means of rightly understanding the divine truths of Scripture and the only rightful place for man, including his mind, was under, not above, the Word. “The humble mind learns according to the power of God’s truth … He is subject to Him, and the power He gives is subject to the moral guidance of the Spirit working in man … with the simplest language, there must be divine apprehensions in the soul to understand Scripture.” [39]

Scripture as a Divine Complex Unity

Scripture for Darby, along with the right interpretation and understanding of it, was and is entirely a divine work that begins and ends with God, not man. Scripture was clearly and entirely, for Darby, to the tiniest detail, the product of “the one divine Mind” that has proceeded from “one Spirit” for “a distinct divine object.” [40] From this, Darby drew two significant and influential implications for his own study of Scripture. First, the proper goal of Scripture study and interpretation is the determination of the divine meaning by divine assistance. “If I seek the meaning, I must seek, not the effect on others, but the intention of the speaker or writer … and nothing else … I must seek simply the purpose and meaning of the speaker and nothing else.” [41] For Darby, this commitment to authorial intent was nothing less than an uncompromising commitment to divine intent. “If I believe it (Scripture) divine, I seek the divine meaning and I shall be helped to discover it, and wait till I do. The moment you compromise, you are off the ground on which the Bible is of any value; or that contending for it is of any consequence whatever.” [42] Secondly, that Scripture presents an overarching “great scheme or plan such as must be in God’s mind …” which “ binds the whole together, from the Pentateuch to Revelation, and brings in the New Testament into its place in the organization of the whole.” [43] These two implications and convictions provided the framework for much of Darby’s hermeneutic, for the way in which he understood Scripture, and for the way in which he understood the continuities and discontinuities between the Old and New Testament.

In light of such convictions, Darby understood Scripture to be a divine complex unity, a composition of many discrete parts perfectly woven together according to the divine design of the one divine Mind, through the work of the one Spirit, for the accomplishment of the one divine plan. This emphasis on the harmony or unity of Scripture is something that seems lost at times by those who championed dispensationalism in America, men who were oftentimes preoccupied with scientific distinctions, schemes, and charts. Darby likened Scripture to a map that presents God’s divine plan for dealing with man. “I believe every book of scripture finds its place, like the parts of a dissected map, and gives a whole which proves its own completeness.” [44] It was within this paradigm that Darby understood the relationship between the Old and the New Testament. Of their relationship Darby states the following: “Now everyone … knows that the later writers were thoroughly imbued with, their minds wholly formed by, what preceded; the prophets by the law, and the New Testament by the Old – that the New Testament … is yet built in every thought on the basis of the Old; though the truths and state be wholly new, and in a certain sense set aside the whole system of the Old, yet nine-tenths of its language is unintelligible, unless we are versed in the Old.” [45]

For Darby, then, Scripture revealed a clear chronology of the divine plan of God’s dealing with man that began in the Old Testament and ended in the New, where the New did not reinterpret the Old, but rather the Old provided the foundation and context with which to understand the New. Each individual part was to be interpreted simply and plainly, according to the context and nature of the passage, whether narrative, poetry, or instructive doctrine, and then understood within the greater context of the whole of Scripture. Darby’s handling of OT prophecy exemplifies this approach. “And, though interpreting each part simply and just as I find it as to the direct meaning of the passages … yet … I shall surely find … a fitting of each part into the whole, and into its own place in the whole, each part in that whole … as the members of the body different entirely in service, yet serve the whole, and serve each other.” [46]

Simplicity and Plain-Sense

To this end, Darby championed a literal or “plain-sense” hermeneutic. He was deeply opposed, for reasons stated above, to allegorizing, spiritualizing, or mystifying Scripture, especially the contents of OT prophecy. He was committed to taking “prophetic scriptures in their direct and plain meaning.” [47] “I reject entirely this mystifying of the Old Testament … ‘The office of the interpreter is not to add another (interpretation), but to recover the original one.’” [48] For the hermeneutics of the early church fathers, he had little use. “Mystical and allegorical interpretations of the Fathers I throw overboard at once. Scripture is not answerable for them; but our friend Philo and the Alexandrians mainly.” [49]

It was to such “allegorical and mystifying” hermeneutics that Darby directly credited heresies such as Arianism. In doing so, Darby demonstrated his keen awareness of the toxic influence of Platonism and Greek philosophical dualism on early church thinking and hermeneutics. So it was that he concluded the following: “It is to me as evident as possible historically, that the Arian doctrine came direct from Philo, at least from the Alexandrian school of philosophers, or Platonist Jews, who held that the supreme God could not be directly connected with the material creation … It was Platonism, not Scripture, and deeply infected the assembly (church).” [50] In contrast to this approach, Darby stated the following: “Each part (of Scripture), as to its statements, is to be understood in itself … We do not assume anything about it. We take what is said in the book itself about itself, and find it verified in the richest and most instructive manner.” [51] For this reason, Darby was able to conclude that “Zion means Zion when she is prophesied about … The prophecy concerns her because it speaks to her on the moral ground she is on, and the arbitrary application to the assembly (the church) is entirely false, because the principle of relationship with God is different.” [52] Consequently, Israel was to be interpreted as Israel and the ekklesia as the church or assembly, distinct in their design and dealings with God, yet both part of God’s overarching divine plan.

Unity in the Heavenly Supremacy of Christ

For Darby, the Bible was a divinely inspired complex unity, expressing a single divine plan that proceeded from the mind of God, composed of multiple distinct but connected parts and people that included Israel, the nations, and the Church, progressively being fulfilled in the history of the world. So Darby concludes, “I get Jews, Gentiles, Israel, Messiah, their history developed in multifarious ways; but all treated by one mind to whom all belong, history bringing out the thoughts of that one mind by each one in the sphere they belong to, and by a revealed bearing one upon another … all running into one another in one great scheme.” [53] There was, for Darby, in Scripture a clear and explicit end to this great divine scheme. The consummation and end of this great scheme, according to Scripture, is to be found in Christ – in many ways the focus of much of Darby’s biblical studies and ministry. So it is that Darby concluded the following: “All in heaven and earth is to be gathered up into one head in Christ. Besides individual salvation and blessing, there are two great topics in scripture – God’s government of the world, and the Church. In Christ both find their Head. He will rule over all, Israel being the earthly centre, while the Church is united to Him … His redemption work being the basis of all, in the power of which He fills all things.” [54] If it was the mind of God that brought unity to the divine plan of Scripture then it was the person of Christ who brought unity to its fulfillment.

It was this conviction, especially the believer’s union with Christ in heaven and Christ’s earthly rule over Israel, which influenced much of Darby’s handling of Scripture and much of Darby’s ministry as a leader of the Brethren movement. The identities of different peoples in the Bible and the role they would play in God’s overarching divine plan was largely determined by the way in which these groups were related or united to Christ within that divine plan. For Darby, what distinguished the believer’s unique relationship with Christ as opposed to that of the nation of Israel was the believer’s present “place in Christ.” [55] The Church, also defined by its relationship to Christ, was, according to Darby, “a congregation of souls redeemed out of ‘this naughty world’ by God manifest in the flesh, a people purified to Himself by Christ, purified in faith in Him, to Him their Head sitting at the right hand of the Father, having consequently their conversation (commonwealth) in heaven, from whence they look for the Savior, the Lord of glory; Phil. 3:20. As a body, therefore, they belong to heaven …” [56]

In many ways, for Darby, the believer’s union with Christ was the ultimate compass both soteriologically and eschatologically. How a person or people were and are related to Christ, soteriologically and eschatologically, determined where and how they fit into God’s overarching divine plan and how they were to live in the present dispensation. So it was that Darby concluded, “There are two great subjects which occupy the sphere of millennial prophecy and testimony: the church and its glory in Christ; and the Jews and their glory as a redeemed nation in Christ.” [57] Because the divine plan ultimately finds its end and its perfection in Christ, preparation for Christ’s return was to be the chief preoccupation of every believer, and so it was for Darby. “I saw that the Christian, having his place in Christ in heaven, has nothing to wait for save the coming of the Saviour, in order to be set, in fact, in the glory which is already his portion ‘in Christ’…” [58] The end, for the believer and for the church, was not primarily an event, but rather a glorious union with Christ in heaven as between a bride and her groom. This is a significant distinction from many of Darby’s dispensational step-sons, for whom emphases on events and the order of those events often overshadowed the individual believer’s union with Christ.

Consequently, much of Darby’s thoughts and labor, in the OT, in the NT, and in the local church, were deeply influenced by this conviction. Wilkinson notes, “It was Darby’s understanding that the expectation of Christ’s imminent return ‘had ruled the intelligence, sustained the hope, [and] inspired the conduct, of the apostles,’ and that the spiritual decline for the Church owed much to the loss of this expectation.” [59] In light of this, one can appreciate though hardly commend, Darby’s separation over differences in eschatology and the Lord’s Supper, in light of the connection he drew between these issues and the believer’s spiritual union with Christ. However, one also notices that perhaps there is a tendency for Darby’s emphasis on the believer’s union with Christ to overshadow the doctrine of the atonement in his writings. Henzel notes that in Darby’s recollection of his assurance of salvation, he oddly did not mention “the forgiveness of sins through the atonement of Christ” and argues that there is a similar trend of under explaining the doctrine of the atonement in the rest of his writings. [60] One wonders how much such a trend contributed to the separation and splits that would sadly come to characterize the Brethren Movement under Darby’s direction.

Darby’s Heavenly Dualism

In considering Darby’s emphasis on the believer’s union with Christ and the supremacy of Christ over all things, what becomes evident is a commitment to an apparent dualism between what is referred to as the “heavenly” and the “earthly” and, consequently, between the purposes of God for Israel and for the Church. Much has been made of this dualistic hermeneutic in recent years, both in and outside of the dispensational community. Clearly, such distinctions dominate much of Darby’s thinking and writing, highlighting his deep commitment to them. It is exemplified by the way in which Darby defines and distinguishes the Church and Israel in the following way:

(The Church in Christ and Israel in Christ are) the heavenly people and the earthly people; the habitation and scene of the glory of the one being the heavens; of the other, the earth. Christ shall display His glory in the one according to that which celestial; in the other, according to that which is terrestrial … When all is accomplished, God shall be all in all…Though the church and Israel be, in connection with Christ, the centres respectively of the heavenly and the earthly glory, mutually enhancing the blessing and joy of each other, yet each ahs its respective sphere…angles, principalities, and the powers in one; the nations of the earth in the other. [61]

As evidenced by Darby’s convictions about Greek philosophy previously cited, this dualism was clearly not a neo-platonic, spiritual verses material, dualism. Henzel linked this dualism to Darby’s conversion and his commitments to the believer’s union with Christ in heaven. “So the heavenly nature of the believer’s union with Christ became the key that unlocked the door to Darby’s spiritual enlightenment, and because it worked so well on that door, it became the key he would use to unlock other theological doors as well… For him, the heavenly position of the believer in Christ was the key.” [62] It is hard to completely substantiate Henzel’s opinion about the basis of Darby’s dualism. For in many ways, Darby’s dualism was as much a prophetic and apocalyptic dualism as it was a metaphysical one. Throughout the Old Testament, what is certainly obvious is that the eschatology of the prophets is rooted in a covenantal world view that makes very hard distinctions between the evil of men and the world and the righteous of God and His heavenly kingdom, between the nature of the present age and the age of the Messiah.

However, did Darby and the traditional dispensationalists who followed him take these distinctions too far? The classical dispensational belief in two separate eternal plans and purposes for Israel and the Church certainly suggest that this may well be the case. Did prophetic dualism in the hands of men descend into an apocalyptic dualism? Mounce’s description of the apocalyptic genre and its dualism certainly bears a remarkable resemblance to trends in Darby’s dualism and that of traditional dispensationalists.

…apocalyptic (genre) is dualistic. This dualism is not metaphysical but historical and temporal. There exist two opposing supernatural powers, God and Satan. There are also two distinct ages: the present one that is temporal and evil, and the one to come that is timeless and perfectly righteous. The first is under the control of Satan and the second under the immediate supervision of God. Closely related to the teaching of two ages is the idea of two worlds, the present visible universe and the perfect world that has existed before time heaven … it should be observed that it (apocalyptic dualism) may also be accounted for by ideas contained in the OT prophets.

Apocalyptic is also characterized by a rigid determinism in which everything moves forward as divinely preordained according to a definite time schedule and towards a predetermined end…Other features that went to make up the apocalyptic outlook include…the conviction that they were living in the last days. [63]

Whatever the source or cause, Darby’s commitment to this dualism certainly influenced his hermeneutic, including viewing the church as a “parenthesis” in God’s plan for Israel. It is interesting to examine Darby’s Ministry on the Epistle to the Ephesians and note that in his discussion of Ephesians 2:13-22, there is no explanation about the Gentiles becoming fellow citizens with the saints or about the meaning of the household of God. [64] For Darby, this is entirely about the church, the heavenly people of God who have absolutely no connection with the nation of Israel or the saints of Israel prior to the cross. So it is that Darby feels obligated to make the following statement in his discussion of this passage, revealing how bound he was to maintain this dualism and distinction at all times: “God could not reveal the church during the Jewish dispensation; for the existence of the church then would have denied the special position of this people.” For Darby, distinction entailed mutual exclusivism and separateness in every possible way. How much of this was Scripture driven verses historical reaction?

Conclusion

Dispensationalism’s attempts to distance its theology from Darby is a most curious phenomenon which traces its roots to the very rise of dispensationalism in America, its acceptance of some of Darby’s thoughts and its rejection of the Brethren Movement as a whole. In many ways, the emphases of classical dispensationalism reflect the historical modernist-fundamentalist battles in America as much as they reflect the ideas that moved Darby and his handling of Scripture. Sadly, however, in separating the man from the movement, many of the fundamental commitments that framed Darby’s theology and provided a unifying biblical balance to the distinctions and discontinuities of his eschatology seem to have been discarded. Chief among them is the unifying theme of a believer’s union with Christ – its absence in dispensational theology often resulting in a cold scientific collection of charts and prophetic timelines that sometimes overshadow the Gospel.

Understanding Darby’s historical context, especially the corruptness of the Established Church, the historical turmoil, and the apocalyptic fervor of the time, goes a long way to understand the battles Darby was fighting and the emphases of his writing and theological thinking. Understanding the commitments of his heart go a long way to demonstrate that many of the ideas that formed the basis of dispensationalism were not merely the product of his imagination or of prophetic fads of the time, but rather the product of a deep commitment to the divine authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture, to the supremacy of Christ in all things, and to the proper handling of the Word of God as a living expression of the One divine mind. At the same time, understanding Darby’s times and commitments go a long way in understanding that he was a man like any other, subject to the same flaws and shortcomings, at times over and under emphasizing critical doctrines, blurring the lines between prophetic and apocalyptic worldviews.

Did Darby take things too far, especially in his relations with those who disagreed with him? Jonathan Burnham notes that Darby exhibited a propensity, as evident in his writing, to believe “ that his views had been enlightened by the truth of Scripture, and that those who disagreed with him were not only wrong, but deluded by the power of the Evil One.” [65] H.A.Ironside, a man with great sympathies for the Brethren movement, gently concluded the following with regard to one of Darby’s acts of ecclesiastical separation from those who disagreed with him: “The impression left on my mind is that Mr. Darby was overzealous for what he conceived to be the glory of God and was not actuated by pride and self-will. But God alone can judge this.” [66] How Darby’s eschatology and ecclesiology tied into the separatism and conflicts of the Brethren Movement is the topic for another paper. However, what can be concluded is that some of the things that predisposed him to ecclesiastical conflict are certainly true of many biblical scholars of every era, men who are prone to equate their own theological conclusions and systems with the authority of Scripture. To ignore the man, is to ignore our own blind spots and our own Achilles heels, and those of dispensationalism.

[28] Henzel, 104.

[29] Darby, Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology, Both Compared with Scripture, CW 9:117.

[30] Ibid., 9:116. Wilkinson, 105.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:309.

[33] Ibid., 9:321.

[34] Ibid., 9:358.

[35] Of these two men, Marsden states: “Dispensationalist leaders regarded these methods of dividing and classifying as the only scientific ones. Scofield, for example contrasted his work to previous ‘unscientific systems.’ Similarly, Reuben Torrey regarded ideas basically as things to be sorted out and arranged…Torrey depicted his work as ‘…The methods of modern science are applied to Bible study – thorough analysis followed by careful synthesis.’” Marsden, 60.

[36] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:334.

[37] Ibid., 9:347.

[38] Ibid., 9:289.

[39] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:241, 245.

[40] Ibid., 9:340.

[41] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:257.

[42] Ibid., 9:321.

[43] Ibid.,9:252.

[44] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:339.

[45] Ibid., 9:340.

[46] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, 9:255

[47] Ibid., 9:256.

[48] Ibid., 9: 256,257.

[49] Ibid., 9:304.

[50] Darby, Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:298.

[51] Ibid., 9:308.

[52] Ibid., 9:305.

[53] Darby, “Inspiration and Interpretation, CW 9:256.

[54] Ibid., CW 9:255.

[55] Wilkinson, 71.

[56] Darby, “To the Archbishop of Dublin” in CW  1:5.

[57] Wilkinson, 110.

[58] Ibid., 71.

[59] Wilkinson, 121.

[60] Henzel, 74.

[61] Darby, Divine Mercy CW 2:122-123.

[62] Henzel, 79.

[63] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 3.

[64] J.N. Darby, Ministry on the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Oak Park, IL: Bible Truth Publishers, 1972), 20.

[65] Jonathan D. Burnham, A Story of Conflict: The Controversial Relationship between Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby, (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster Press, an imprint of Authentic Media, 2004), 212.

[66] H.A.Ironside, A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement. Neptune, (NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1985), 45.