Appendix C LEAVEN AS EXCLUSIVELY EVIL Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened (Matt. 13:33).
The Dominionist interpreters constantly emphasize the Bible's elaborate system of symbols. This is the foundation of their whole method of interpretation. But they depart from their own principle when it doesn't serve their purpose. They try to make the symbol of leaven in this parable refer to the Kingdom of God and how it will spread to take dominion over the earth. However, there's one big problem with that interpretation -- leaven in the Bible is always used as a symbol of evil's explosive power(1) to spread. It is never used as a symbol of good.
Hal Lindsey (1989)(2)
Yeast is a biblical symbol of continuity. It symbolizes growth over time, both of good and evil. If leaven in the Bible referred exclusively to the development of evil, then it could not be a defining characteristic of the kingdom of God. But Matthew 13:33 says that it is such a defining characteristic. Conclusion: it is not, contrary to the dispensationalists, invariably a symbol of evil. Late in his career, Dallas Seminary theologian J. Dwight Pentecost admitted this in the carefully concealed revision of his 1958 book, Things to Come.(3) But Hal Lindsey is not about to give up this crucial pillar of dispensationalism.
There is a very good reason for Lindsey's emphatic yet theologically insupportable assertion regarding the meaning of leaven. The dispensationalist must deny that the kingdom of God acts in a leaven-like fashion because of his view of the future of the church. If the kingdom of God grows steadily over time, yeast-like, reaching its consummation with Christ's Second Coming at the final judgment, then what of the timing of the so-called "secret rapture" of the church into heaven? This discontinuity is said by dispensationalists to be scheduled a thousand and seven years before the final judgment.(4) This is why Dr. Pentecost's revision of Things to Come represents a remarkable surrender of a crucial element of the dispensational position.
In contrast, amillennialists and postmillennialists deny that this bodily resurrection into the heavens will be secret. Second, they place it at the end of time, immediately prior to the final judgment. They appeal to Matthew 13, a chapter that utterly destroys the theological case for dispensational premillennialism, for it undermines dispensationalism's principle of historical discontinuity.
Continuity and Discontinuity Matthew 13 denies the central pillar of dispensationalism's view of the future: the cosmic discontinuity of the bodily "rapture" of the saints up to heaven before the millennium, the period in which Jesus will supposedly reign from a throne in Jerusalem. The essence of the New Covenant kingdom in history is continuity, according to Matthew 13; therefore, the monumental historical discontinuity of the premillennial secret rapture(5) cannot be made to fit within this kingdom continuity.
Consider Christ's parable of the tares and wheat, which is only one part of Matthew 13's defense of the New Covenant era of historical continuity:
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn (Matt. 13:24-30).
This parable confused the disciples. They asked Jesus to explain it to them. He did, making it clear that there will be no discontinuity ("Rapture") before the His Second Coming in final judgment:
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear (Matt. 13:37-43).
Loraine Boettner, a postmillennial theologian, devoted an entire chapter to this obvious problem in dispensational exegesis.(6) To answer him, dispensationalists need at least a detailed volume. A brief, off-hand remark or two is not sufficient, yet this is all they bother to provide. They do not acknowledge the existence of Boettner's chapter. Since there is no answer to their exegetical problem except adopting either postmillennialism or amillennialism, one can hardly blame them. (This same criticism -- no eschatological discontinuity in the future -- applies to all premillennial systems.)
Without doubt, this is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible for both the amillennial and premillennial views of the Bible. Boettner has commented forcefully on the clear teaching of Matthew 13:33, the parable of the leaven: gradualism. "The parable of the leaven teaches the universal extension and triumph of the Gospel, and it further teaches that this development is accomplished through the gradual development of the Kingdom, not through a sudden and cataclysmic explosion. . . . The Kingdom of heaven, like leaven, transforms that with which it comes in contact. All the meal was transformed by its contact with the leaven. Similarly, Christ teaches, society is to be transformed by the Kingdom of heaven, and the result will be a Christianized world. Premillennialists cannot admit this. To do so would contradict their whole system. Hence they seek another meaning, and where Christ says the Kingdom of heaven is like leaven, they say that the leaven is not symbolical of the Kingdom of heaven, but of evil."(7)
He then chides dispensational commentators -- self-proclaimed defenders of a literal hermeneutic -- for their obvious "spiritualizing" of the plain teaching of Scripture: "We are at a loss to understand how any one professing to take the Bible at face value, particularly those who lay great stress on literal interpretation, can deliberately contradict the words spoken so clearly and unequivocally and make them mean the exact opposite, in this case, false doctrine. These are the very people who protest so strongly against `spiritualizing.' Anyone who can so change the meaning of Scripture can make it mean anything that he pleases."(8)
The Kingdom as Righteous Leaven (9)The kingdom of God is like leaven. Christianity is the yeast, and it has a leavening effect on the pagan, satanic culture around it. It is designed to permeate the whole of this culture, causing it to rise. The bread produced by this leaven is the preferred bread. In ancient times -- indeed, right up until the nineteenth century -- bread was considered the staff of life, the symbol of life. It was the source of men's nutrition. "Give us this day our daily bread," we are to ask God (Matt. 6:11). The kingdom of God is the force that produces the fine quality bread that men seek. The symbolism should be obvious: Christianity makes life a joy for man. It offers the cultural benefits that most men acknowledge as the best (Deut. 4:5-8).
Leaven takes time to produce its positive effect. Leaven requires historical continuity. Men can wait for their leavened bread, for God gives them time sufficient for the working of His spiritual leaven. They may not understand how it works, how its spiritual effects spread through their culture and make it a delight, any more than they understand how yeast works to produce leavened bread, but they can see the bread rising, and they can see the progressive effects of the leaven of the kingdom. They can look into the oven and see risen bread.
If we really push the analogy -- pound it, even -- we can point to the fact that the dough is pounded down several times before the final baking, almost as the world pounds the kingdom; but the yeast does its work, just so long as the fires of the oven are not lit prematurely. If the full heat of the oven is applied to the dough before the yeast has done its work, both the yeast and the dough are burnt, and the burnt mass must be thrown out. But given sufficient time, the yeast does its work, and the result is the bread that men prefer.
What a marvelous description of God's kingdom! Christians work with the cultural material available, seeking to refine it, to permeate it, to make it into something fine. They know that they will be successful, just as yeast is successful in the dough, if it is given enough time to do its work. That is what God implicitly promises us in the analogy of the leaven: enough time to accomplish our individual and our corporate tasks. He tells us that His kingdom will produce the desirable bread. This will take time. It may take several poundings, as God, through the hostility of the world, kneads the yeast-filled dough of man's cultures, but the end result is guaranteed.
Dr. Pentecost's Startling Revision Dallas Theological Seminary professor J. Dwight Pentecost's book, Things to Come,(10) is the standard academic book in Bible prophecy within dispensationalism. He has reversed his views on just this point. Without telling the reader why he reversed himself, or even that he has reversed himself, he has overthrown the traditional dispensational interpretation of the parable of the leaven (Matt. 13:33). His earlier interpretation had followed the lead of C. I. Scofield and all other dispensational theologians of the twentieth century: the key rebuttal of the continuity eschatologies of postmillennialism and amillennialism. Without this theologically crucial rebuttal, it is impossible to defend premillennialism's eschatological discontinuity: the Rapture.
In the original edition (1958) and subsequent editions until the 1987 edition, he defended the traditional dispensational view of leaven as evil. In the original edition, he argued for the eventual triumph of unbelief in this, the "Church Age." He wrote that Jesus' parable of the mustard seed (Matt. 13:31-32) points to the expansion of an evil tree in history, "a monstrosity. . . . The parable teaches that the enlarged sphere of profession has become inwardly corrupt. This is the characteristic of the age" (p. 147). In his exposition of the parable of the leaven, he argued: "This evidently refers to the work of a false religious system. . . . This figure is used in Scripture to portray that which is evil in character. . ." (p. 148). Summarizing, he wrote: "The mustard seed refers to the perversion of God's purpose in this age, while the leaven refers to a corruption of the divine agency, the Word, through which this purpose is realized" (p. 148). Pentecost's focus here was ethics: the progressive triumph of evil through time, during the "Church Age." This could at least serve as the foundation of a dispensational philosophy of history: the defeat of the saints.
Three decades later, he abandoned this view, but very few of his followers are aware of the fact. The 1987 reprint is not a reprint but a strategically revised edition. It is nowhere identified as such. Dr. Pentecost had the typesetter carefully superimpose a crucial revised section. The switch is almost undetectable, yet it is a devastating admission for dispensationalism. Here is his revised exposition of Christ's kingdom during the "Church Age." Mustard Seed: "This part of the parable stresses the great growth of the kingdom when once it is introduced. The kingdom will grow from an insignificant beginning to great proportions" (p. 147). There is not a word about its ethical corruption. Leaven: "When leaven is used in Scripture it frequently connotes evil. . . . Its use in the sacrifices that represent the perfection of the person of Christ (Lev. 2:1-3) shows that it is not always so used. Here the emphasis is not on leaven as though to emphasize its character, but rather that the leaven has been hidden in the meal, thus stressing the way leaven works when once introduced into the meal" (p. 148). In short, there is now no focus on ethics: not one word about any evil effects of either the mustard seed or the leaven. Today his focus is on the growth of the kingdom of Christ in history -- the postmillennial focus: "The parable of the mustard and the leaven in meal, then, stress the growth of the new form of the kingdom" (p. 148).
If Christ's kingdom is not being corrupted in our dispensation, then it is either ethically neutral (the kingdom of Christ as ethically neutral?!?) or positive. Pentecost's theological problem is obvious: there can be no ethical neutrality. If the necessarily expanding kingdom of Christ is not being steadily undermined by theological and moral perversion, then it must be growing in righteousness. This interpretation is the postmillennial view of the kingdom of God: expansion over time. Matthew 13 is not discussing Satan's kingdom; it is discussing Christ's. Dr. Pentecost has very quietly overthrown the heart and soul of the traditional dispensational system's account of the inevitable progress of evil in this, the "Church Age."(11) Yet no one inside the dispensational camp has been willing to discuss in public the implications of this radical alteration by Pentecost, or explain exactly why it has not, if correct, overthrown the dispensational system.
The Parables of Growth
The parables of growth point to a fulfillment of God's plan, in time and on earth. They point to a steady expansion of the leaven of the gospel. They point to an expansion of God's kingdom, in time and on earth, as the leaven makes something edible of the fallen dough of creation. The fallen dough will rise. It takes leaven. It takes kneading. It takes time. But the fallen dough of the cursed creation will rise. God promises this. But Christians still refuse to believe it. When Christ announces "The kingdom of God is like unto. . . ," they reply, "Oh, come on, it couldn't be like that. No, it is really like this. . . ."
Premillennialists substitute a parable of uprooted wheat (the Rapture). In "pop-dispensationalism," the uprooted wheat is returned to the field seven years later and is replanted, though fully mature and perfect, alongside of the still-maturing tares, and alongside of newly planted wheat.(12) Amillennialists, who do believe in historical continuity, have rejected this vision of a premature uprooting, but they have no confidence in Christ's earthly leaven, either. They wind up arguing for the cultural triumph of Satan's earthly leaven. Satan's leaven will steadily push out Christ's cultural leaven, we are told. Only at the final judgment will Christ's return in power instantaneously remove Satan's leaven and instantly fire up the oven, leaving His earthly leaven, the church, to do its work instantly, raising the dough in the midst of the oven. In other words, their view of the leaven of the church violates the parable's analogy, that is, the steady rising of the dough before the oven's final baking.
Both of these millennial approaches are widely held today. Both provide theological justifications for the seeming inability of the church to grow more rapidly than Satan's kingdom does, and also the seeming inability of Christians, as Christians, to provide leadership in any field.(13) Whichever of these two substitutions a man accepts, he has abandoned the analogy of the holy leaven. He has abandoned the principle of godly growth over time. He has abandoned Christ's explicit teaching concerning the true nature of His kingdom. He may deny the continuity of growth (the uprooted wheat scenario). He may deny the continuity of victory (Satan's leaven wins). In either case, Christ's people must fail in their dominion assignment, in time and on earth.
In the second view, Satan's leaven triumphs, and God doesn't even bother to go through the premillennialists' "breathing robot" stage of the church, with the direct rule of Christ, in Person, through His bureaucratic hierarchy of breathing robots. God simply scraps history at the end, wiping out Satan in a cataclysmic example of historical discontinuity. God redeems the earth in an instant, makes His people into fully redeemed, fully perfect dominion men, who now can exercise dominion over a fully redeemed creation. In short, God's people in history never learn how to rule. The garden of Eden was a failure as a training camp for dominion; the land of Canaan was equally a failure as a training ground for dominion; and finally, the church of Jesus Christ, the New Jerusalem, winds up an historical failure as a training ground for dominion. Nothing that God does through His people has worked or can work culturally, given the power of evil in history, so God will at last -- at the last -- scrap the failed program in an instant and intervene graciously to give His people their comprehensive cultural victory on a platter. Here is a revised version of the New Testament's parable of the mustard seed: just add instant judgment (since time, God's law, and the ethical subordination of Christ's church to the Master obviously failed, and since the preaching of the gospel failed, and since Christian institutions failed), and presto: an instant mustard tree. So much for continuity.(14)
John Walvoord's Silence It is not an accident that dispensationalist theologian John Walvoord refuses to comment on Matthew 13:33 anywhere in his book on the Rapture. Neither does he mention the word "leaven." He has a problem: explaining the Rapture's discontinuity. He ignores the problem. He writes that "the truth about the church as the body of Christ has not yet been introduced, as this is not mentioned until Matthew 16:18. Further, the doctrine of the Rapture has not been introduced either, and the disciples were unaware of the truth of the translation of the saints at the end of the church age. Accordingly, the truth presented in Matthew 13 deals with the whole period between the First and Second Advents."(15) In short, the continuity of history predicted in Matthew 13 was annulled by later revelation. Let us put this argument more graphically: Jesus deliberately misled His disciples in Matthew 13. Later, He showed them the truth. This sort of argument is common among theological liberals; it is sad to see a conservative expositor appeal to it.
One wonders how Walvoord would answer a Jew who might question him about the doctrine of the Trinity and its apparent absence in the Old Testament. Walvoord probably would reply, "The revelation of the Trinity came after the Old Testament." But that is the Jew's whole point. Such a response does not deal with the fundamental dividing issue. The chronological sequence of revelation is not the issue here; the issue is theological consistency. The key hermeneutical question in both examples -- the Trinity and the dispensational Rapture -- is this: "Does some later Bible teaching categorically contradict an earlier teaching of the Bible?" The appropriate response for a conservative Bible scholar is to demonstrate that an earlier revelation is not contradicted by subsequent revelation.
This is not Walvoord's approach. He simply asserts that Jesus' teaching on the kingdom came, well, later. We know that, Dr. Walvoord! That isn't the point. The point is this: the Rapture doctrine categorically contradicts the plain teaching -- literal, I hasten to add -- of Matthew 13. The Rapture doctrine asserts the existence of a radical historical discontinuity between Christ's first advent and His coming again in final judgment. Matthew 13 denies such a possibility. This is premillennialism's number-one exegetical problem, comparable to amillennialism's inability to explain Isaiah 65:17-23.(16)
Walvoord writes that "the truth presented in Matthew 13 deals with the whole period between the First and Second Advents." Postmillennialists and amillennialists agree entirely: "Second Advent" means Christ's bodily, visible Second Coming at the final judgment. It means the end of sin-cursed time. But this cannot be its meaning for dispensationalists, since sin-cursed time does not end during the millennium, even though Christ is said to reign on earth during the millennium. Then what does Walvoord mean by "Second Advent"? The phrase is not listed in the book's index. We do find "Second Coming," especially "in contrast to the Rapture," but unfortunately this reference takes us to the book's endnotes (pp. 277-78): no comments, just a bunch of assorted notes. The entry for "Second Coming" refers us to page 61, where we read: "At the Second Advent, indeed, there is a gathering together of the church from heaven and the Old Testament saints in resurrection along with elect angels as well as elect on the earth. All elect of all ages converge upon the millennial scene." This is a reaffirmation of a major discontinuity before the final judgment, when all the dead will be raised from the grave. But we do not need reaffirmations to persuade us; we need detailed exegesis.(17) He provides none.
So, rather than discuss Matthew 13, which is the single most important continuity passage in the New Testament, and which on the face of it categorically denies the possibility of the premillennial Rapture, Walvoord just ignores the problem. The premillennial Rapture doctrine was first presented in the New Covenant, he says, with the doctrine of the church, which itself was tacked onto the kingdom doctrine by Jesus three chapters later, in Matthew 16. So much for Jesus' teaching on His kingdom's continuity. Jesus' supposedly definitive teaching in Matthew 13 regarding the continuity of His kingdom barely survived for three chapters. (Not much continuity there, certainly!) Walvoord's exegetical strategy does not encourage anyone's confidence in dispensationalism's supposedly literalistic hermeneutic. (Or, as I have summarized it, "literal whenever convenient.")(18)
C. I. Scofield's Denial Walvoord is following C. I. Scofield's lead. Scofield's comment on the parable of the field is almost beyond belief. Jesus said: "The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one" (v. 38). Message: the field is the world. Scofield said: "The parable of the wheat and tares is not a description of the world, but of that which professes to be the kingdom."(19) Message: the field is not the world. Scofield was saying that Jesus was wrong. This is a very difficult position for a Bible-affirming author to take, but Scofield was a lawyer. He was presenting a typical lawyer's brief. "If the jury must be misled in order to win your case, this is the price a successful lawyer must pay." Lawyers pay it all the time.
Scofield knew exactly what he had to do: deny the historical continuity of Christ's kingdom. He did this by denying that Jesus had said what Jesus had clearly said, namely, that the historical arena of Satan's deception is the world. Scofield's approach is the corrupt lawyer's tactic of the deliberate misrepresentation of fact. The preposterous nature of his comment should not be regarded as evidence of Scofield's intellectual incompetence. Lawyer Scofield was smart; he was also consistent: driven to this deceptive tactic by the inescapable logic of his position. He understood his jury. The jury for almost a century has remained silent about this obvious misrepresentation. His successors have not deviated from his interpretation. The dispensational theologians who edited the New Scofield Reference Bible (1967) left this note intact, word for word.(20) They could not give up this note without abandoning the whole dispensational system. If the field is the world, then the world will never experience any discontinuity in the middle of New Covenant history so radical as the premillennial Rapture: the tearing out of the wheat, dispensationalism teaches (in open contradiction of the text), rather than the tares. They abandoned a great deal in their revisions of Scofield's notes, but not this. The price was too high.
The meaning of leaven is continuity and growth. This dual process refers to history: the kingdom of God. Yet this is what has always been denied by dispensationalism. The traditional dispensational view is that while leaven does refer to growth, this growth is the growth of evil. If good also grows, then a central pillar of dispensational theology collapses, and with it the central pillar of dispensational social ethics (meaning a theologically rigorous absence thereof). If good increases, then the Christian social theorist must answer two questions: 1) What is the legal basis in society of this progressive social good? 2) How is this progressive social good to be achieved? Dispensationalists shy away from asking either question. Both questions lead to theonomic answers.
Scofield and His Revisers
I need to cite Scofield here at considerable length, in order to make clear the nature of the exegetical debate. The exegetical debate centers around the question of the effects of the gospel in history. The dispensationalist assumes that the gospel must fail to transform the world in history, i.e., the era of the church prior to Christ's secret Rapture of the saints and His subsequent physical return to earth to establish an earthly kingdom. This is premillennialism's eschatological presupposition. The failure of the gospel to transform society is supposedly an inescapable prophetic truth: predestinated by God.
With this view of church history as his operating presupposition, Scofield then applied it to the interpretation of Matthew 13:33, which reads: "Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Scofield recognized his primary theological problem in this passage: postmillennialism. So, he devoted his note to a refutation of . . . amillennialism. He had to deflect the jury's attention from the really hard nut to crack in this passage: its postmillennial implications, i.e., the growth of Christ's kingdom in history. Scofield wrote the following convoluted passage:
That interpretation of the parable of the Leaven (v. 33) which makes (with variation as to details) the leaven to be the Gospel, introduced into the world ("three measures of meal") by the church, and working subtly until the world is converted ("till the whole was leavened") is open to fatal objection: (1) It does violence to the unvarying symbolical meaning of leaven, and especially to the meaning fixed by our Lord Himself (Mt. 16.6-12; Mk. 8.15. See "Leaven," Gen. 19.3; Mt. 13.33 note). (2) The implication of a converted world in this age ("till the whole was leavened"), is explicitly contradicted by our Lord's interpretation of the parables of the Wheat and Tares, and of the Net. Our Lord presents a picture of a partly converted kingdom in an unconverted world; of good fish and bad in the very kingdom-net itself. (3) The method of the extension of the kingdom is given in the first parable. It is by sowing seed, not by mingling leaven. The symbols have, in Scripture, a meaning fixed by inspired usage. Leaven is the principle of corruption working subtly; is invariably used in a bad sense (see "Leaven," Gen. 19.3, refs.), and is defined by our Lord as evil doctrine (Mt. 16.11,12; Mk. 8.15). Meal, on the contrary, was used in one of the sweet-savour offerings (Lev. 2.1-3), and was food for the priests (Lev. 6.15-17).(21)
Garbled, isn't it? Note: when a Bible expositor writes garbled prose, you can be fairly confident that he is having trouble explaining the text.
Scofield's view is affirmed, though in more readable English, by the New Scofield Bible: leaven as evil.
Leaven, as a fermenting process, is uniformly regarded in Scripture as typifying the presence of impurity or evil (Ex. 12:15,19; 13:7; Lev. 2:11; Dt. 16:4; Mt. 16:6,12; Mk. 8:15; Lk. 12:1; 1 Cor. 5:6-9; Gal. 5:9). The two wave loaves, representing Israel and the Gentiles as forming the Church, contained leaven in recognition of imperfections in the believers (see Lev. 23:17, note). The use of leaven in the three measures of meal seems intended likewise to represent evil within the kingdom of heaven. The teaching that leaven in this parable represents the beneficent influence of the Gospel pervading the world has no Scriptural justification. Nowhere in Scripture does leaven represent good; the idea of a converted world at the end of the age is contradicted by the presence of tares among the wheat and bad fish among the good in the kingdom itself.(22)
Then the editors added an afterthought, one not found in Scofield's original notes. They threw a sop -- a single introductory clause -- to those Christians who by 1967 desperately wanted to see some influence for good in history as a result of the gospel, that is, as a result of their personal efforts. This brief genuflect in the direction of social concern reflected the beginning of the end for traditional dispensationalism: "Although Biblical truth has a beneficial moral influence on the world,(23) the mingling of leaven is not the method of divine salvation or enlargement of the kingdom. Tares never become wheat."(24)
Some questions must be raised at this point. First and foremost, how in the name of Scofield can there be a visible, historically meaningful, beneficial moral influence of the gospel in this world prior to the Rapture? On what basis? Common grace, perhaps? If so, then postmillennialists can use this crucial admission to explain a great many things about the growth of God's kingdom in history. It was postmillennialism above all that Scofield had to refute in his note on Matthew 13:33 -- the task he discreetly avoided. On the other hand, if this beneficial influence is neither visible nor historically meaningful, why mention it at all? What emotional good would such an impotent influence in the "Church Age" do for one's followers? Why should one's followers care? They did not care in Scofield's day. By 1967, however, the emotional support for dispensationalism's social pessimism had begun to fade. A decade later in the United States, it faded rapidly, when American fundamentalist Christians re-entered the world of politics after half a century of withdrawal.(25)
Smoke Screens
An argument found in both Scofield Bibles rests on the undeniable fact that there will still be tares at the end of history. I admit: not everyone will become a Christian. This admission would be a great deal more devastating if there had ever been any theologian in history -- let alone an entire school of interpretation -- who argued that when Christ returns there will be no one found on earth except born-again Christians.(26) That the Scofieldians thought it worth including this argument in their notes indicates their need for convenient stick men to refute. Space for notes in a Bible is extremely scarce. It is my contention that an expositor does not waste precious note space in a study Bible in order to refute nonsense unless he is trying to deflect the reader's attention from his own nonsense. He burns stick men in public in order to produce smoke.
The heart of the Scofield notes' argument, however, is the assertion that leaven always means corruption. This is a highly dangerous argument. It can very easily sink the theologian who rests his case on it. The familiar logician's tool is true: "A universal negative is refuted by a single positive." Such a positive example unquestionably exists, and our expositors knew this, which is why they refused to cite this key passage in their long list of supposed negative examples: "Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings" (Lev. 7:13). Leaven was mandated by God for use in peace offerings. How could a symbol of ever-growing evil serve as a sacrifice mandated by a holy God?
The Peace Offering
Elsewhere, Scofield offered a note on Leviticus 7:13. He acknowledged that this was a peace offering to God. "The use of leaven here is significant. Peace with God is something which the believer shares with God. Christ is our peace-offering (Eph. 2.13). Any thanksgiving for peace must, first of all, present Him. In verse 12 we have this, in type, and so leaven is excluded. In verse 13 it is the offerer who gives thanks for his participation in the peace, and so the leaven fitly signifies, that though having peace with God through the work of another, there is still evil in him. This is illustrated in Amos 4.5, where the evil in Israel is before God."(27) The leaven supposedly represents the evil peace-offerer. The unleaven supposedly represents Christ. This note is reprinted without alteration in the New Scofield Bible.
If we take Scofield at his word, then something symbolically evil was somehow a satisfactory offering to God. What verse could be appealed to in order to substantiate this thesis, namely, that an unclean thing was ever acceptable to God as an Old Covenant sacrifice? The dispensationalists do not attempt to offer such evidence. I cannot imagine what sort of evidence could be offered. The very context of this passage warns against such a conclusion:
And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire: and as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof. But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people. Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which [pertain] unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off from his people (Lev. 7:19-21).
Even to touch an unclean thing and then eat the peace offering meant excommunication from the congregation. Yet dispensationalists -- those writing prior to the 1980's -- wanted us to believe that leaven is exclusively a symbol of evil, but then they turned around and declared that this inherently evil symbol was acceptable to God as the basis of establishing peace with Him. (Those writing after 1980 have yet to replace this obviously untenable line of argument, but at least they no longer defend it.)
The whole point of a peace offering was to admit publicly that the person offering the peace offering was judicially clean. His sins had been forgiven. The peace offering was not a required sacrifice for wiping away sin. It was a voluntary sacrifice that acknowledged that the person's sin had already been wiped away. It was a public act of covenant renewal.
Nothing was placed on God's fiery altar that was not representationally clean. The sacrifice was a legal substitute. It pointed to a future legal substitute, Jesus Christ. To have a judicially impure object on God's altar would necessarily have pointed to the doctrine of Christ's humanity as fallen. Scofield understood this, so he identified the unleavened cakes as the symbol of Jesus Christ. But this approach destroys any doctrine of representation for the leaven. If the peace-offerer was represented by something impure, he had no legal basis for making the peace offering. His sacrifice of leaven would have condemned him publicly if leaven always meant evil exclusively. But if leaven is not always a symbol of evil, how are we to explain it?
The Leaven of the Pharisees What is strange is the fact that within the Reformed tradition, there have been examples of interpretations of Leviticus 7:13 that are similar to Scofield's. Premillennialist Andrew Bonar(28) wrote in 1846: "His sins are all forgiven; there is peace between him and his God. There is in the worshipper no uncleanness now. But this reconciliation does not declare that there is no corruption left remaining in the worshipper. Perfect pardon does not imply perfect holiness. There is a remnant of evil left. But here we see that remnant of evil brought out before the Lord. The `leavened cakes' intimate the corruption of the offerer; . . ."(29) Amazingly, Rushdoony follows Bonar's lead.(30) The fact that dispensationalists have not been alert to the covenantal implications of this interpretation is not surprising; that covenant theologians have been equally inattentive to the covenant is surprising.
Perhaps covenant theologians have been led into the dispensationalist ditch of muddled symbolism because of Jesus' warning regarding leaven of the Pharisees.
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees (Matt. 16:6-12).
The disciples, initially committed to popular Jewish hermeneutical literalism and therefore frequently incapable of understanding Jesus' analogies, made a similar mistake. Jesus then told them what He meant. He was condemning the leaven of the Pharisees. They recognized that Jesus was talking about the Pharisees' false doctrine. The text does not say false doctrine as such, but only the Pharisees' false doctrine. The problem today is that modern theologians still have not understood the implications of the disciples' subsequent understanding of Jesus' warning. All leaven is not evil. The Pharisees' leaven was evil, so it had to be avoided. There was nothing wrong with leaven as such. It does not symbolize evil as such. Sometimes it symbolizes good, which is why it served as a mandatory peace offering. It symbolizes growth, not evil. Growth in evil is to be avoided; growth in righteousness is to be pursued.
Conclusion The brief kingdom parable of the leaven in Matthew 13:33 rests on an understanding of leaven as a symbol of growth and continuity, not leaven as exclusively evil. If leaven is understood as exclusively evil, then Satan's kingdom must be viewed as triumphant in church history. This is exactly what premillennialism asserts with respect to the history of the church, i.e., the period prior to Jesus' bodily return to the earth. But the parable identifies the kingdom of heaven as leaven: growth.
We see in the discussion of leaven by dispensationalists an example of how eschatology can influence and even determine exegesis. What the passage speaks plainly about -- the kingdom of heaven -- the dispensationalist must deny. This is why J. Dwight Pentecost's admission in the latest edition of Things to Come is so devastating. He has abandoned the "leaven is always evil" exegesis. But it is discouraging to read the discussion of leaven by Bonar and Rushdoony (especially Rushdoony, a dedicated postmillennialist), who retain traces of the older dispensational view of leaven.
Leaven is an inescapable concept in the New Covenant era. Something must grow over time: either good or evil. Let it be good. We must therefore seek to purge the old exegetical leaven and substitute the new leaven.
Footnotes:
1. Have you ever seen yeast explode?
2. Hal Lindsey, The Road to Holocaust (New York: Bantam, 1989), p. 47. As an aside, Bantam is located at 666 Fifth Ave., New York City.
3. See below, "Dr. Pentecost's Startling Revision."
4. In pre-tribulational premillennialism, by far the most widely held view. In post-trib premillennialism, 1,000 years.
5. Hereafter referred to as the Rapture.
6. Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1958), ch. 18.
7. Ibid., p. 27.
8. Idem.
9. For a more detailed exegesis, see Gary North, Moses and Pharaoh: Dominion Religion vs. Power Religion (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1985), pp. 158-72.
10. Dunham Publishing Co., distributed by Zondervan.
11. Gary DeMar spotted this shift in early 1992. He looked up Pentecost's section on leaven in the 1987 edition. He found that it was not what Kenneth Gentry had quoted in a newsletter. He called Gentry, who looked it up in the 1958 edition. The two versions differed.
12. Gary North, Millennialism and Social Theory (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), pp. 152, 255-56, citing Thomas D. Ice and Dave Hunt.
13. The one major exception is the Wycliffe Bible translation organization's linguistics program.
14. North, Millennialism and Social Theory, ch. 6.
15. John F. Walvoord, The Rapture Question (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1979), p. 183.
16. North, Millennialism and Social Theory, pp. 96-106.
17. For over 35 years, the theological leaders of the dispensational movement have contented themselves with a series of brief reaffirmations. Since the late 1970's, they have not given us very many of these. Since 1988 -- no Rapture, yet the 40th anniversary of the founding of the nation of Israel -- we have heard very little at all. Since Bahnsen and Gentry destroyed House and Ice's Dominion Theology: Blessing or Curse? (Portland, Oregon: Multnomah Press, 1988), we have heard nothing. See Greg L. Bahnsen and Kenneth L. Gentry, House Divided: The Break-Up of Dispensational Theology (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989). See also Gary North, Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism is Paralyzed (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1993).
18. Some reader may ask in a generation or two: "Why is North kicking this dead theological horse?" Answer: because in my day, this horse is indeed theologically brain-dead at the seminary level, but its body -- local churches comprising millions of fundamentalists -- is still kicking. I am trying here to give it a decent Christian burial. I am burying it with Scripture.
19. C. I. Scofield, The Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1909), p. 1015n.
20. The New Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 1015n.
21. Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1016n.
22. New Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1015n.
23. Emphasis added.
24. Idem.
25. The withdrawal came in 1925, after the defeat in the media of fundamentalist spokesman William Jennings Bryan during the world famous Scopes "monkey trial." The case centered on the teaching of evolution in tax-financed schools below the collegiate level. See George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), ch. 21.
26. I wrote a book to deal with this very question of wheat, tares, and the final rebellion of Satan's forces at the end of time in a Christianized world: Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987). The answer is remarkably simple: the spread of the gospel increases the common grace of God in history. To gain God's external covenantal blessings, men must obey God's external covenantal laws. Men want these blessings, so they will obey. The external cultural blessings will come, as God has promised (Lev. 26; Deut. 28). The world will be progressively transformed. The rebels therefore have something big to rebel against.
27. Scofield Reference Bible, p. 134n. Amos 4:5: "And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD."
28. On Bonar's premillennialism, see Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope: A Study in Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), p. 195.
29. Andrew Bonar, A Commentary on Leviticus (London: Banner of Truth Trust, [1846] 1966), p. 132.
30. R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1973), pp. 82-83.
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