Angus Stewart

 

Introduction

Let us begin with a few words introducing, in turn, each of the three elements in the title of this article. First, dispensationalism is a theological system with a major emphasis on the last things, the subject of this book, Behold, I Come Quickly: The Reformed Biblical Truth of the End. Second, J. N. Darby was a nineteenth-century, Anglo-Irish preacher who taught premillennial dispensationalism and is even known as “the father of dispensationalism.” Third, Powerscourt refers to a mansion south of Dublin in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. In the stately home of Powerscourt were held highly significant conferences in the history of dispensationalism that involved J. N. Darby. Thus you have the gist of the title: dispensationalism, the eschatological system; J. N. Darby, the key man in its development; and Powerscourt, the impressive mansion where Darby proclaimed and defended his end-times theories.¹

Some readers of this article were once dispensationalists; others have friends or family who are dispensationalists and have heard about this system from them; others have debated eschatology with dispensationalists. However, others may struggle a bit with the unfamiliar theology of dispensationalism. This article will involve some history, the history of dispensationalism, which likewise may be new to you. It will also contain some biography, the biography of J. N. Darby (1800-1882), about whom you may not know much.

To put it more positively, readers are going to learn something new! This article will make a number of tie-ins and connections to things with which, I trust, many will be more familiar. Hopefully, this presentation will complement the preceding nine exegetical and theological chapters of Behold, I Come Quickly: The Reformed Biblical Truth of the End.

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Dispensationalism’s Popularity

Let us start with dispensationalism. Why should you want to know about dispensationalism?

First, there is its prevalence. In our day, among evangelicals, dispensationalism is probably the majority view regarding the end times. Certainly, it is the most widely held eschatological position in the US, the country of many of the readers of this book, Behold, I Come Quickly: The Reformed Biblical Truth of the End. Dispensationalism is big in Canada, where some important conferences advocating this system of the last things were held near the Niagara Falls in the late nineteenth century. In Australia, in Singapore, in the Philippines, in the various parts of the British Isles and even in Hungary, there are a lot of dispensationalists.² Moreover, dispensationalism is a very popular eschatology not only in these lands but also in countries all around the world.

Second, there are well-known and influential dispensational books. Many readers will be familiar with the Scofield Reference Bible (1909), the most famous and best-selling study Bible ever.³ Regarding C. I. Scofield himself, it may interest you that he was born in Michigan and that he was a Congregational minister. The 1917 edition of the Scofield Reference Bible teaches the Gap Theory, a compromise with evolutionary, old earth ideas. Strangely enough, this study Bible is published by the secular Oxford University Press.⁴

The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) by Hal Lindsey was so popular that twenty years after its first publication it had sold 28 million copies. What the Reformed Free Publishing Association (RFPA) in America would not do for a solid Reformed title that would sell like that! Hal Lindsey’s book was even made into a film, not that I am advocating acting or watching drama.

There is also the Left Behind series (1995-2007), consisting of sixteen best-selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. These are easily read fictional works set in a future framed by dispensational eschatology. The Left Behind series has spawned four movies to date, with probably more on the way, and even a personal computer game with several sequels.

This highlights one of the attractions of dispensationalism for some. It is, what we may call, the eschatology of fiction, the eschatology of science fiction.⁵ For those inclined towards science fiction, this is the view of the end times which would fit in with their disposition. This, in turn, means that dispensational eschatology lends itself to movies and computer games. This is attractive to some.

Apart from its prevalence and its famous books, we can mention a third factor: dispensationalism has been promoted by various influential bodies in the USA, including the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago in Illinois and, therefore, Moody Press and Moody Radio. Generally speaking, Biola University in Los Angeles in California, Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas and Bob Jones University in South Carolina are dispensational. Though based in America, these educational institutions spread dispensationalism around the world in various ways.

Fourth, dispensationalism is especially connected with certain denominations or churches. The Brethren assemblies are dispensational. Most Baptists, Fundamentalists, Pentecostals and Charismatics are dispensationalists. Also many other evangelicals and members of independent congregations are dispensationalists.

A fifth way of revealing the significance of dispensationalism is that of listing the names of some prominent dispensational preachers and authors. Some of them will probably be familiar to you: Charles Fuller, M. R. DeHaan, Donald Grey Barnhouse, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, Paul Crouch, Jerry Falwell, Jack Van Impe, etc. Though a dispensationalist, John MacArthur Jr. has been referred to as a “leaky dispensationalist” by those who are rigidly devoted to the system—a criticism that he accepts. D. L. Moody has been called a dispensationalist by some, although Moody “never mastered the system.”⁶

Some even claim that two US presidents were dispensationalists: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. However, the reality is merely that a significant part of their constituencies were dispensationalists, and that Carter and Reagan were (or appeared to be) open to listening to their ideas.

 

Dispensationalism’s Major Features

So what are the major features of dispensationalism (in its most widely held form)? The name itself comes from dispensations, understood as distinctive periods in which God deals in different ways with, and tests, His people. Currently, the dominant form says that there are seven dispensations: the dispensations of innocence, conscience, civil government, promise, law, grace and the millennium.

The belief for which dispensationalism is most famous is its secret rapture, which we may refer to as Christ’s first second coming. At the secret rapture, all believers who are alive on the earth will be taken up to meet the Lord in the air. This rapture is imminent—it could happen at any moment since there are no preceding signs.

After the secret rapture, there are seven literal years of tribulation. These are followed by, what is in effect, Jesus’ second second coming. Next is a literal thousand-year, Jewish millennium which ends with what we may call the Lord’s third second coming, which is 1,007 years after His first second coming. After that is the eternal state with saved Jews on earth and believing Gentiles in heaven.⁷

This highlights another attraction of dispensationalism for some. Dispensationalism is not only the eschatology of science fiction; it is also the eschatology of charts, with timelines displaying the seven dispensations and/or the last 1,007 years of the world, including the rapture, the seven-year tribulation, the literal millennium and the three second comings, etc.⁸

The hermeneutics or method of interpreting Scripture for dispensationalism is literalism. Dispensationalists boast, “We interpret the Bible literally.” As regards most of the Bible, this is fine. However, their position is literalism, for dispensationalists hold to a literalistic hermeneutic as regards predictive prophecy concerning Israel and the book of Revelation.⁹

One’s hermeneutic is an extremely significant factor in determining one’s eschatology, especially when one comes to interpret the predictions of the Old Testament prophets—there are sixteen Old Testament writing prophets—and the last book of the New Testament. How is one to understand the Bible’s predictive prophecy regarding the Jews and apocalyptic literature?

Dispensationalism’s literalism is not the Protestant hermeneutic. The Reformed, and the historic Christian, position is not literalism but “Scripture interprets Scripture,” which leads to two closely related principles. First, the New Testament interprets the Old Testament. Second, the clearer parts of the Bible interpret its less clear parts. As the Westminster Confession declares,

The infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, (which is not manifold, but one,) it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly (I:9).

The most basic distinction, even separation, in dispensationalism is that between the earthly nation of Israel, on the one hand, and the New Testament, and largely Gentile, church, on the other hand. According to this theory, Israel receives earthly, temporal and material blessings, whereas the church receives heavenly, eternal and spiritual blessings. It was J. N. Darby, perhaps more than anyone else in the history of the Christian church, who emphasized that repeatedly.

It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Ballad of East and West,” which contains the famous line: “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”¹⁰ For Darby and dispensationalism, Israel is Israel and the church is the church, and never the twain shall meet!

J. N. Darby called this separation between Israel and the church the “hinge upon which the subject [i.e., dispensationalism] and the understanding of Scripture turns.”¹¹ Do you recall what John Calvin called the “hinge on which religion turns”? Justification by faith alone!¹² The Christian faith turns on this gospel hinge. Darby makes the Bible turn on a dispensational hinge. In effect, he is saying, “Dispensationalism turns upon the distinction—nay, separation—between Israel and the church!”

According to dispensationalism, God does not have one great purpose in history or even in the eternal state. Instead, He has two main purposes: on the one hand, national Israel’s salvation with earthly, material blessings and, on the other hand, the Gentile church’s salvation with heavenly, spiritual blessings.

Which one of those two major purposes is more important for dispensationalism? It is Israel. Why? For dispensationalism, the church is only a “parenthesis,” a subordinate clause. The main clause in the dispensational sentence is the earthly nation of Israel. During the last 2,000 years, God has been uttering an extremely long subordinate clause (the church), but He will add a comma or semicolon and launch into the 1,007-year main clause at the secret rapture, when the church is taken out of the way and the Jews are restored to their rightful pre-eminence. Moreover, according to dispensationalism, the church is not even predicted or mentioned in the Old Testament!

Can you think of another false theological system which presents God as having two great purposes in history? The theory of common grace promoted especially by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). It is not often that Abraham Kuyper and J. N. Darby are put together! The two men differed vastly in the practical calling which flowed from their respective dualistic worldviews, with Darby firmly in the Anabaptist world-flight tradition and Kuyper advocating the social transformation of the Netherlands and the world.¹³

The special grace of God, says Kuyper, achieves the salvation of the church in Jesus Christ. It functions alongside God’s (supposed) common grace, whereby He makes the reprobate ungodly something less than totally depraved so that they can do good works in natural things, works that He approves of and rewards, works that Jehovah even brings into the eternal state of the new heavens and the new earth!¹⁴

Over against Darby with his two dispensational purposes with Israel and the church, and Abraham Kuyper with his two divine goals involving particular grace and common grace, the true view is that the Most High has one great purpose with His world: the glory of the Triune God served by the Lord Jesus Christ, who saves all His elect church of Jews and Gentiles by sovereign grace alone, and who uses everything in all of creation and providence, including the reprobate wicked, to serve this end (Col. 1:12-22; Rom. 9; 11). This is the one and only truly Christian worldview.¹⁵

 

Darby and His Family

Let us now move from the system of dispensationalism to the man, John N. Darby, who fathered it. The story starts with some memorable aspects of his birth and naming. What is the year of J. N. Darby’s birth? It is 1800, a nice round and memorable number.¹⁶

Where was he born? Westminster in London. Did anything important in the theological sphere happen in Westminster? The Westminster divines met in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey and produced the Westminster Standards, consisting of the Westminster Confession, the Westminster Larger Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, besides other significant documents in the 1640s. As far as I am aware, Darby never showed any positive interest in the faith of the Westminster Standards, although they were produced not far from his birthplace.

What was the middle name of John N. Darby? Nelson. Who do you think he was named after? John Nelson Darby was named after Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, Britain’s greatest naval commander.¹⁷ Two years before J. N. Darby’s birth, Nelson’s forces defeated Napoleon’s navy at the Battle of the Nile (1798), making him a national hero.

Interestingly, while Napoleon was sailing east across the Mediterranean, he was studying the Quran. Bonaparte wanted to conquer the Middle East and so cut off Britain’s connection with India. Napoleon dreamed of creating a new religion with a new Quran, which he would compose according to his own ideas. Thereby, he could cement some sort of world peace for his desired world empire.¹⁸ This was another reason for the identification of him by some as the “little horn” in Daniel or the Antichrist.

John Nelson Darby’s uncle, Admiral Sir Henry D’Esterre Darby, was the commander of HMS Bellerophon. He served with distinction under Vice-Admiral Nelson at the 1798 Battle of the Nile. Two years after this battle, Lord Horatio Nelson arrived back in England in the month of young Darby’s birth. Given England’s fervour for its national hero, and the naval link between Nelson and the baby’s uncle, his parents named their little boy John Nelson Darby. In fact, young John Nelson Darby had Lord Nelson himself for his godfather!¹⁹

Later in life, John Nelson Darby would be known to many through his initials, JND. Do you know any other Christian leaders who often go by their initials? Herman Hoeksema or HH, for one.

The social prominence of John Nelson Darby’s family is not only indicated by the naval glory of his godfather or the titles of his uncle. Anne Vaughan, JND’s mother, was Anglo-American. Her Unitarian family had connections with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.²⁰

JND’s father, John Darby, was not Anglo-American but Anglo-Irish. His family owned Leap Castle in King’s County, now County Offaly, which is around the middle of the island of Ireland. John Darby, was an Anglican, unlike the Unitarians of JND’s mother’s side. The future dispensationalist’s father was a well-to-do landowner and a merchant, who had done very well for himself through lucrative government contracts servicing the British forces during the Napoleonic Wars. He lived in a fashionable district of London, though he was apparently somewhat eccentric. The Darby household, according to Benjamin Wills Newton’s later recollections, was a bit strange.²¹

What about the young JND’s education? He attended Westminster School in London and then Trinity College in Dublin, where he read classics (in which he received the Gold Medal) and law.²² He was called to the Irish Bar in 1822 and seemed destined for a glittering legal career.²³

 

Darby and the Church of Ireland

However, John Nelson Darby’s recent conversion to high church or sacramentalist principles meant that he never actually practised law. Instead, he entered the ministry of the Church of Ireland. He was appointed a deacon in 1825 and a priest in 1826. In 1825, when he was twenty-five years old, he was made the curate of a large rural parish at Calary in County Wicklow, south of Dublin. There he engaged in extremely energetic labours over hill and bog, visiting the poor, illiterate, Roman Catholic peasants, to whom he was like a medieval saint appearing out of the marshy mists.

Another turning point in John Nelson Darby’s religious career involved a serious riding accident in late 1827. JND was thrown from his horse against a doorpost and injured especially his knee. This resulted in a lengthy convalescence, during which he studied the Scriptures and became an evangelical. His assurance of his salvation grew during this period, as did his confidence in the authority of the Bible: where God’s Word disagrees with church tradition, one must go with Scripture.

John Nelson Darby’s commitment to the Church of Ireland was weakened by the policy of the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, William Magee. At that time in Ireland, there were about 600 to 800 converts from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism a week. Impressive: 600 to 800 a week! The Archbishop saw to it that these converts were required to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown. If you have any grasp of Irish politics, you have some inkling of what that meant. Darby, understandably, thought this hindered the work of the gospel, so he wrote a short work against the position advocated by the Archbishop of Dublin.

The young Anglican minister began to question the Church of Ireland further. What about the idea of an established church? Is it right that everybody pays their tithe to the Church of Ireland, even if they are members of other denominations? He wondered about the legitimacy of the parish system. He questioned appointment to special offices in the church, especially ordination by a bishop.

Besides the issues of the assurance of salvation, the authority of Scripture and his own ecclesiastical situation, he began to think a lot about unfulfilled prophecy. The chapter which especially struck him was Isaiah 32, which he wrongly interpreted as being yet unfulfilled.

 

Darby and the Newmans

Around this time, John Nelson Darby met Francis Newman. These are the words of Newman, summarizing his initial impressions of Darby:

… a most remarkable man,—rapidly gained an immense sway over me. I shall henceforth call him “the Irish Clergyman.” His “bodily presence” was indeed “weak”! A fallen cheek, a bloodshot eye … a seldom-shaven beard, a shabby suit of clothes and a generally neglected person, drew at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing-room. It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar; and if not true, the story was yet well invented.²⁴

Who was this Francis Newman who made these observations regarding John Nelson Darby? He was the brother of no less than John Henry Newman (1801-1890)! John Henry Newman was an Oxford University academic and a minister in the Church of England, who started off as an evangelical but later apostatized from the truth.

John Henry Newman headed down the deadly track of Arminianism, ritualism and Romanism. In other words, he went the way of the Anglican high-church tradition. He became a leader in the Oxford Movement, also called Tractarianism. It received these names because many of its original devotees were associated with Oxford University and they promoted their ideas by means of the infamous Tracts for the Times, a series of ninety theological publications from 1833 to 1841.

Eventually, John Henry Newman romanized to such an extent that he left the Church of England and converted to Rome (1845), as did other Tractarians. He thereby had to swallow The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which anathematize the gospel of Jesus Christ and everyone who believes the scriptural truth of the Reformation. The pope made John Henry Newman a Roman Catholic cardinal in 1879.

In short, Francis Newman, after being deeply impressed with John Nelson Darby, told his brother, John Henry Newman, all about JND. Some interesting connections!

 

Eschatological Ferment

Now let us turn to the historical background for the formation of dispensational eschatology. It is no exaggeration to say that Darby came to the fore in days that were marked by eschatological ferment.

The end-times fervour of the early decades of the nineteenth century was, in part, incited by the turbulent political events of the era.²⁵ The French Revolution of 1789 began a seismic struggle in Europe. The Revolution was swiftly followed by Madame Guillotine and the Reign of Terror, which ended in July, 1794. Napoleon Bonaparte, though small in stature, brought huge convulsions throughout Europe. Through amazing military victories and sweeping political transformations, Napoleon united under himself much of the continent, before his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (1815). He was widely seen by evangelicals at the time as an antichrist, if not the Antichrist (cf. I John 2:18).

In those days, the British people were scared both by the French atheists to the south and the Irish papists to the west. Their greatest fear was that the two would unite against them.

One could also mention three major laws passed in Britain around that time (1828-1832). First, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828) meant that no longer did politicians have to take an Anglican oath to be members of Parliament. Second, the Catholic Emancipation Acts (1829) enabled Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, though Roman Catholics still did not have the vote. Third, the Reform Bill (1832) widened the franchise. What did all these massive changes portend? Was popery going to take over the British Isles?

The tempestuousness and uncertainty of the times led to increased enquiry into, and speculation regarding, the end of the world. All these things were signs of the times! What does the Bible have to say about them? Are we seeing things predicted in God’s Word? What is coming next?

One helpful way for twenty-first-century readers to understand the prophetic ferment in the first few decades of the nineteenth century is to consider more recent events. Many speculated that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was building the new Babylon spoken of in the book of Revelation. Who can forget all the brouhaha regarding Y2K (AD 2000), including the postmillennial Christian Reconstructionists’ claim that, when the world’s computer systems collapsed, they would be in prime position to take over the planet? Then there was September 11 (in 2001) when, in four coordinated attacks on America, Islamic terrorists murdered almost 3,000 people and caused at least ten billion dollars of damage in infrastructure and property. One also recalls Harold Camping’s date settings. He declared that 6 September, 1994, might be the day of Christ’s return. Later, he proclaimed that the Lord would come back on 21 May, 2011. When that day too came and went, Camping then identified 21 October, 2011, as marking Jesus’ second coming. Thus this false prophet was refuted by both events and Scripture (Matt. 24:36).²⁶

The days in which John Nelson Darby was hammering out his eschatological position were even more heightened in their eschatological ferment than recent times. This is evidenced by several factors in the early decades of the nineteenth century: the large subscriptions to periodicals on unfulfilled prophecy, the plethora of books on the last times and the number of conferences on the end of the world.²⁷ Most of this eschatological excitement was both millennialistic and literalistic.

 

Origins of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

It was in this milieu that the likewise millennialistic and literalistic thinking of John Nelson Darby arose, including the development of his views on the secret, pre-tribulation rapture, when true believers on earth will be snatched away by Christ immediately before a literal seven years of terrible tribulation.²⁸ So the question arises: How did JND come to that view? There are three major proposals as to the origins of the secret, pre-tribulation rapture.

First, did Darby get it from a Scottish charismatic lassie called Margaret MacDonald (1815-c.1840)? In an 1830 vision, she claimed to utter predictive prophecy by the Holy Spirit, including material regarding the rapture. It is undoubtedly the case that Darby was aware of Margaret MacDonald and her “oracles,” though that does not prove that she was the origin of his secret, pre-tribulation rapture.²⁹

Second, others reckon that John Nelson Darby got his rapture view from another charismatic, Edward Irving (1792-1834), a Church of Scotland minister in London, who was later deposed by his denomination for heresy regarding Christology. The eschatology of Edward Irving was itself greatly influenced by a book written by a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, Manuel Lacunza, who was born in Chile, and later lived in Spain and Italy, and who wrote under a Jewish pseudonym, Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra.³⁰

A third option is that JND got his theory of the rapture from two French Roman Catholic authors, a Dominican called Bernard Lambert (1738-1813) and a Jansenist named Jean Agier (1748-1823). Darby had indeed read their works in French. Also Darby, in all probability, went to France around the year 1830.³¹

How are we to evaluate these three proposals? Do the origins of JND’s secret, pre-tribulation rapture lie with either of the two Scots or the two Frenchmen or the well-travelled Chilean mentioned above? Is the source of this key component in Darby’s eschatology a charismatic female (Margaret MacDonald) or a charismatic male (Edward Irving)? Did JND’s rapture theory come from any of the three Roman Catholics: the Dominican, the Jansenist or the Jesuit who tried to pass himself off as a Jew? To Reformed believers, a charismatic or Roman Catholic origin for the secret, pre-tribulation rapture of Darby and dispensationalism does little to commend it. One muses with Job, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” (Job 14:4).

It is not essential in this article to take a position on one of these three options. Perhaps some of the other proposals not mentioned here are correct or Darby came by the notion all by himself.³² Maybe JND arrived at his theory of the secret rapture through a combination of two or more of these factors. Though such historical enquiries have their place, for our present purposes, it does not really matter.

In general, in the history of ideas and the development of the thinking of an individual, it is often hard to tell whence someone got his or her views, especially if that person does not tell us his or her source(s). Moreover, we have incomplete records for this stage in John Nelson Darby’s life and thinking. Later, JND downplayed the influence of others upon him. His claim was that he got his ideas from the pure fountain of Scripture alone for God taught him from His Word.

 

First Powerscourt Conference

All of this brings us to the stately mansion in County Wicklow in which were held the three major Powerscourt Conferences of 1831, 1832 and 1833. The central subject of all three gatherings was the end times.³³ The attendees included John Nelson Darby and many others.

How did these conferences came about? Their inspiration and model were the Albury Conferences (1826-1830) held in the mansion of Henry Drummond, a wealthy Scot, in Surrey, south of London. The hostess of the Powerscourt Conferences, Lady Theodosia Anne Powerscourt, had been at the first Albury Conference in 1826.³⁴ She had been influenced in various ways by Edward Irving, who had kindled her interest in prophecy, and had enjoyed the discussions at Henry Drummond’s impressive residence. She decided that she would stage a similar conference on the last things with the same sort of people back at her mansion, Powerscourt, in northern Wicklow.

The first Powerscourt Conference took place over four days: Tuesday to Friday, 4-7 October, 1831.³⁵ Who and how many were there? Approximately thirty-five clergymen, fifteen laymen and twenty women, making a total of about seventy people. That is a fair bit smaller than typical BRF Conferences.

The format for that conference was not, as at a week-long BRF Conference, several lectures by two main speakers, with a couple of speeches by other ministers. Powerscourt was a much more intensive and less family-orientated conference. Various men would present their views in turn with lots of discussion. Each day was split up into three main sessions. Session 1 ran from 10 am to 5 pm (seven hours), session 2 was from 6 pm to 8 pm (another two hours) and session 3 occupied 9 pm to 10 pm (a final hour), giving a ten-hour day on eschatology!

You are probably wondering what subjects were covered. Consider this book, Behold, I Come Quickly: The Reformed Biblical Truth of the End, consisting of the speeches given at the 2016 BRF Conference. It deals with many of the foundational Scripture passages on the end times and the major components of eschatology. The three main Powerscourt Conferences also addressed these portions of God’s Word on the end of the world and their key ideas.³⁶ However, the conferences in that mansion in County Wicklow proceeded from a premillennial perspective and so came to very different conclusions from those of the 2016 BRF Conference in a castle in County Down!

The topics on day 1 of the first Powerscourt Conference included the goal or “end of creation and redemption.”³⁷ The attendees also discussed the question, “Is it [the] present duty [of Christians] to resist or endure corrupt Institutions?” In Reformed terminology, it could be expressed thus: If one’s church is not faithful to God’s Word, is one to put up with it or seek to reform it or leave it in order to join or begin a congregation clearly manifesting the three marks of a true church?³⁸

Day 2 covered the 1,260 days of Revelation 11:3 and 12:6. Do they refer to “days or years”?³⁹ Connected with this was a sketch of Daniel and Revelation. Are these books “literal or symbolical”?

Day 3 included these topics:

[The] last great and terrible conflict at [the] coming of Christ. Who [is] the power that heads it? Against whom? [What are the] signs by which this power [is] to be known? Proof whether [the] saints [are] to suffer in it?⁴⁰

The final day of the conference treated these subjects:

What [is] to be the state of the world and [the] state of the Church at [the] coming of Christ? What cause [is there] to think from Scripture [that] these are, or are not, the last days?

To this was added: “This [is] to include whether Ezekiel’s temple [Eze. 40-48] is to be before or during the Millennium.”⁴¹

 

Second Powerscourt Conference

The second year’s conference at Powerscourt took place during four days in late September, 1832.⁴² Day 1’s subjects included the prophetic import of the three Jewish pilgrimage feasts (Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles), Jacob’s blessings of his sons (Gen. 49) and the letters to the seven churches (Rev. 2-3).

These are questions asked on day 2:

Should we expect a personal Antichrist. If so, to whom will he be revealed? Are there to be one or two great evil powers in the world at that time? … By what covenant did the Jews, and shall the Jews, hold the land [of Canaan]?

Though they err grievously here, even premillennialists have to address the issue of the covenant!

Day 3 focused on the relationship between the books of Daniel and Revelation. This may have developed or built upon the discussions on the second day of the first conference.

On the last day, these were the questions:

What light does Scripture throw on present events, and their moral character? What is next to be looked for and expected? Is there a prospect of the revival of Apostolic churches before the coming of Christ? What [are] the duties arising out of present events?

Then various eschatological Scriptures were discussed (Matt. 24:23-24; I Tim. 4; II Tim. 3; II Pet. 3; Jude), some of which have been treated in this book, Behold, I Come Quickly: The Reformed Biblical Truth of the End.

This second conference in Co. Wicklow resulted in a certain amount of discord, with some participants becoming upset, especially on day 4 (Friday, 28 September). There were three main subjects of contention.

First, there were debates over various aspects of eschatology itself. This could easily have been expected, given that the people at Powerscourt included a significant number who were largely self-taught and/or had engaged in original research and/or were strong characters.

A second major controversy involved miraculous gifts in the post-apostolic age. Edward Irving had followers at Powerscourt who promoted his charismatic ideas. Other conferees were cessationists, rightly believing that direct revelation and miracles had ended in the first century, with the deaths of the apostles and the completion of the New Testament canon (II Cor. 12:12; Eph. 2:20; Rev. 22:18-19). It is not surprising that heated arguments broke out between the charismatics and the cessationists at the conference.

Third, there were differing views regarding the spiritual condition of the Church of Ireland. Lady Powerscourt listened closely to the debates in her house, as the grievous sins and weaknesses of that denomination were set forth. As a member of the Church of Ireland, she was troubled in her own soul and “passed the final night” of the second conference “in tears.”⁴³ She was wrestling with the question: “What ought I do? What is my calling before God regarding church membership?” Soon after this, Lady Powerscourt seceded from the Church of Ireland and joined the Brethren at Aungier Street in Dublin.

A romantic element enters our story at this point. John Nelson Darby became emotionally involved with Lady Powerscourt. Apparently, they became formally engaged but JND broke it off. He was planning on a life of itinerant ministry, but he came to the conclusion that marrying the rich Lady Powerscourt and presiding at the family mansion were not compatible with his perceived calling. Darby later wrote, “I turned down a marriage and broke a heart in doing so.”⁴⁴

 

Third Powerscourt Conference

The third and final major Powerscourt Conference occurred over five days in late September, 1833. This was far and away the largest of the three conferences. There were almost 400 people there, including prominent evangelicals and church leaders from Ireland, Scotland and England.⁴⁵

The format was changed and became more formal. Now lectures were delivered and there was much less group participation. This was due in part to the large number of attendees and was, perhaps, designed to keep a lid on some of the tensions.

The first day, Monday, 23 September, covered the differences between the everlasting covenant and the covenant of the Lord. This seems a very strange subject to a Reformed Christian!

On Tuesday, the following questions were asked:

Is the visible Christian Church founded on the basis of the Jewish? What is the nature of the ministry and ordinances of the former? Are the promises to either, or both, conditional?

It is striking that the issue of the conditionality or unconditionality of God’s promises (and covenant) crops up, even within the framework of false theologies!

These are the topics addressed on day 3:

The analogy between the close of this dispensation and the former. What is Mystic Babylon [e.g., Rev. 17]? Is the call [to come] out of her to be a Divine call at a set period, or is it a perpetual call [18:4-5]?

Thursday was spent exploring the connection between “the present and the future” dispensations, with the latter being a reference to a literal thousand-year, earthly, Jewish kingdom.

Finally, on Friday, 27 September, the attendees considered temptations from Satan in different ages, especially now and in the future.

What about Darby’s role at the third and last Powerscourt Conference? One participant noted that JND “spoke last [at the meetings], and often for hours, touching on all that had been previously said.”⁴⁶ Darby was energetically promoting a rapture that would occur before the tribulation (a pre-tribulation rapture) and at any time, without being preceded by precursory signs (an imminent rapture). Those who disagreed with him, including some “big hitters” like Benjamin Wills Newton (a leading advocate of historic premillennialism), were very disappointed and went home grieved. Thus the Powerscourt Conferences, and especially the third one, marked a significant step in the development and formulation of J. N. Darby’s dispensational views.⁴⁷

 

Darby’s Later Years

Throughout the remainder of John Nelson Darby’s long and healthy life, he vigorously spread dispensational eschatology and Brethren ecclesiology far and wide. He engaged in extensive travels throughout the British Isles and Western Europe. He spent time in Switzerland, including John Calvin’s Geneva, where he delivered eleven speeches on the end times (1840) which are still in print, and Pierre Viret’s Lausanne.⁴⁸ Besides labouring in Switzerland, he also preached in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. Journeying to North America, Darby taught in Canada, the USA (including Michigan and Chicago) and the West Indies. He even preached in Australia and New Zealand. Through his zealous promulgation of dispensational eschatology and his own brand of independent ecclesiology, JND established many churches or, as he would say, “assemblies” in countries around the world.⁴⁹

Darby was gifted linguistically in the biblical tongues of Hebrew and Greek, and knew various modern European languages, including French and German, which enabled him to preach to people in France, Germany and Switzerland in their native tongues.

He used his language skills to translate the Bible. He rendered the Old and New Testaments into English in The Darby Bible.⁵⁰ With some assistance, he produced a French Bible (the Pau Bible, named after Pau in southern France, where he worked on this project) and a German Bible (known as the Elberfelder Bibel, again for geographical reasons), plus the New Testament in Dutch and Italian.

At the Reformation, some translated the Bible into their mother tongue (e.g., Martin Luther, William Tyndale, Pierre Olivetan). Others rendered the Scriptures into the language(s) of their mission fields (e.g., John Eliot, Henry Martyn, William Carey, Robert Morrison). But Darby is unique in that he translated the Word of God (all or just the New Testament) into five modern European languages (English, French, German, Dutch and Italian) that already possessed the Scriptures!

Darby’s other published works consist of over fifty volumes, so that he is one of the most voluminous writers in the history of Christianity.⁵¹ However, his writings are composed in what is possibly the most terrible literary style in the history of Christian literature.⁵² What is even more bizarre is that it seems that JND deliberately cultivated his awkward prose, so as not to allure anyone to his articles through the carnal appeal of a well-turned phrase!

This rather strange man died and was buried in Bournemouth in southern England (1882), but his dispensationalism with its secret pre-tribulation rapture has gone all around the globe.⁵³ Yet it all began for him and, in a sense, for the world, in the misty marshes and a magnificent mansion in County Wicklow in Ireland!

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¹ Jonathan D. Burnham highlights “the importance of these [Powerscourt] conferences to Darby,” for they “provided a stimulating venue for [him] to debate his emerging ideas on prophecy in an atmosphere which combined aristocratic certitude and apostolic single-mindedness in a potent blend” (A Story of Conflict: The Controversial Relationship between Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby [Great Britain: Paternoster, 2004], p. 114).

² If you are wondering why I have chosen these countries, it is because they were represented at the 2016 British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Family Conference in Castlewellan Castle in Northern Ireland.

³ R. Todd Mangum and Mark S. Sweetnam make the following helpful comparison: “Historically speaking, the Scofield Reference Bible was to dispensationalism what Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses was to Lutheranism, or what Calvin’s Institutes was to Calvinism” (The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church [Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2009], p. 195).

⁴ Some years ago, a copy of the Scofield Reference Bible that I owned (for research purposes) was stolen by someone who broke into the car we had hired in the Netherlands!

⁵ For an exploration of this, see Crawford Gribben, Rapture Fiction and the Evangelical Crisis (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2006).

⁶ However, it is more accurate to call Moody a historic premillennialist. As with most areas of his theology, the noted evangelist also lacked clarity in his eschatology.

⁷ Darby and dispensationalism promote what is one of the most egregious forms of eschatological “Jewish dreams” in the history of the Christian church (Second Helvetic Confession 11).

⁸ This reminds me of a comment I once received after giving a lecture on the last things: “Your speech on the end times did not really do it for me. You had no charts!”

⁹ David Bebbington identifies the hermeneutic of literalism as the “lynchpin” of J. N. Darby’s eschatology: “prophecy relating to the Jews would be fulfilled literally … this principle of interpretation became the lynchpin of his system” (Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992], p. 89).

¹⁰ Later in Kipling’s poem, East and West did actually meet in the form of two brave men from each culture who looked each other in the eye. By God’s grace, elect believers from East and West meet and fellowship with one another through the gospel of Jesus Christ, as do Jews and Gentiles (Gal. 3:28).

¹¹ Quoted in Burnham, A Story of Conflict, p. 37.

¹² John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960), 3.11.1; 1: 726. Calvin also uses this imagery regarding justification by grace alone in his commentary on Romans 1:17.

¹³ For a biblical and confessional critique of the latter, see David J. Engelsma, Christianizing the World: Reformed Calling or Ecclesiastical Suicide? (Jenison, MI: RFPA, 2016).

¹⁴ One wonders how this can be reconciled with II Peter 3:10: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

¹⁵ For more on this, including a critique of Abraham Kuyper’s theory of common grace, see Henry Danhof and Herman Hoeksema, Sin and Grace, trans. Cornelius Hanko, ed. Herman Hanko (Grandville, MI: RFPA, 2003).

¹⁶ This is exactly one hundred years after the birth of James Fraser of Alness (1700-1769), the subject of my lecture at the 2014 BRF Conference and the final chapter in the previous BRF book: “A Scottish Classic on Sanctification: James Fraser of Alness’s ‘Explication’ of Romans 6:1-8:4,” in David J. Engelsma and Herman Hanko, Be Ye Holy: The Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification (USA: British Reformed Fellowship, 2016), pp. 129-148.

¹⁸ Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon: A History of European Civilization from 1789 to 1815 (New York: MJF Books, 1975), pp. 109-110. “‘I would found a religion,’ he [i.e., Napoleon] reflected with megalomaniacal arrogance, ‘I saw myself marching on the way to Asia, mounted on an elephant, a turban on my head, in one hand a new Koran I would have composed myself'” (Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography [London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011], p. 311).

¹⁹ Lord Nelson was not present at the baptismal service, however (Burnham, A Story of Conflict, p. 14).

²⁰ Timothy C. F. Stunt, “Influences in the Early Development of J. N. Darby,” in Crawford Gribben and Timothy C. F. Stunt (eds.), Prisoners of Hope? Aspects of Evangelical Millennialism in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1880 (Great Britain: Paternoster, 2004), pp. 50-51.

²¹ Burnham, A Story of Conflict, pp. 14-15.

²² Mark Sweetnam and Crawford Gribben explain that this was “the highest reward conferred by the College on students of outstanding merit” (“J. N. Darby and the Irish Origins of Dispensationalism,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52/3 [September, 2009], 571).

²³ The two greatest Reformers both studied law, according to the wishes of their fathers. Martin Luther’s legal studies at the University of Erfurt were cut short when he was nearly hit by lightning outside Stotternheim (1505). John Calvin received his law degree (1531) through studies at the universities of Orléans and Bourges.

²⁴ William Blair Neatby, A History of the Plymouth Brethren (Stoke-on-Trent: Tentmaker Publications, 2001), pp. 52-53.

²⁵ Cf. Burnham, A Story of Conflict, pp. 1-4.

²⁶ Though Darby did not claim to know the day or month, he did specify the year! It was “his conviction that the rapture would occur some time during 1842” (Burnham, A Story of Conflict, p. 152, n. 21). William Miller, a key figure in the origins of the Seventh-day Adventist cult, claimed that Jesus Christ would return to the earth by 1844, two years after the year predicted by Darby.

²⁷ This is Neatby’s analysis: “Brethrenism [and especially its dispensationalism] may even be held to derive its very existence in part from the new prophetic studies to which the unsettlement of men’s minds, consequent on the long agony of the Napoleonic wars, gave rise” (A History of the Plymouth Brethren, p. 45).

²⁸ Gary L. Nebeker calls Darby “the principal architect of dispensationalism’s doctrine of the pretribulation rapture” (“‘The Ecstasy of Perfected Love’: The Eschatological Mysticism of J. N. Darby,” in Prisoners of Hope? p. 69).

²⁹ That she is the main source of JND’s view is advocated and popularized in Dave MacPherson, The Incredible Cover-Up (Medford, OR: Omega Publications, 1980).

³⁰ This is the position of Duncan McDougall, The Rapture of the Saints (Muskogee, OK: Artisan Publishers, 1998).

³¹ Cf. Stunt, “Influences in the Early Development of J. N. Darby,” pp. 63-66.

³² Cf. Burnham, A Story of Conflict, pp. 122-126.

³³ John H. Gerstner calls them “a sort of symposi[a] on Biblical prophecy” (Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism [Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2000], p. 22).

³⁴ Like JND, she was born in 1800. However, unlike Darby, she died young (31 December, 1836).

³⁵ On Monday, 3 October, there was a discussion of the gifts of the Spirit but this was, apparently, more of a pre-conference meeting.

³⁶ For the topics treated on the various days of the three main Powerscourt Conferences, see Burnham, A Story of Conflict, pp. 116-117, 119-120, 128 or go on-line (https://archive.org/details/questionsforeigh00lond). The presentations were not written down and no minutes of the proceedings were taken.

³⁷ However, for dispensationalism, as we have seen, “creation and redemption” do not have one “end” but two ends, as regards the earthly Jewish nation and the heavenly Gentile church.

³⁸ The biblical and Reformed teaching is summarized in Belgic Confession 28-29.

³⁹ They are symbolic of the New Testament age (cf. William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1997], p. 129).

⁴⁰ Dispensationalism’s answer to the last question is, No, for believers are raptured away before the literal seven-year tribulation.

⁴¹ Scripture and the Reformed faith proclaim that “the ceremonies and figures of the law [including a temple of stone, an Aaronic priesthood and bloody sacrifices] ceased at the coming of Christ” in whom “all the shadows are accomplished” (Belgic Confession 25).

⁴² As with the previous year, this was preceded by a Monday evening session (24 September).

⁴³ Burnham, A Story of Conflict, p. 121.

⁴⁴ Quoted in Burnham, A Story of Conflict, p. 122.

⁴⁵ Is this an instance where England is understood to include Wales or were no Welsh people there?

⁴⁶ Quoted in Neatby, A History of the Plymouth Brethren, p. 46.

⁴⁷ It ought to be noted that more developments in the eschatological thinking of Darby were to come, as was the further hardening of the lines between the various positions.

⁴⁸ Darby’s The Hopes of the Church of God: The Geneva Lectures contradict the one “blessed hope” of the Lord’s one return (Titus 2:13) and the teaching of the Reformation.

⁴⁹ Interestingly, throughout his ministry, John Nelson Darby held to infant baptism and election, and opposed the Arminian doctrine that unregenerate man possesses free will to choose Christ—all contrary to the vast majority of the Brethren and other dispensationalists.

⁵⁰ It is referred to more formally as The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby.

⁵¹ His writings have been printed in different editions, plus he penned many magazine articles, letters, etc., and left numerous unpublished manuscripts.

⁵² Sweetnam and Gribben refer to “Darby’s famously and formidably impenetrable prose” (“J. N. Darby and the Irish Origins of Dispensationalism,” 165). We read that “J.N.D.’s ordinary style is repugnant,” even in so favourable a source as Henry Pickering (ed.), Chief Men Among the Brethren (USA: Loizeaux Brothers, 1986), p. 14.

⁵³ Gerstner wrongly states that Darby’s funeral service was attended by “eight to ten thousand persons” (Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth, p. 24; emphasis added). However, this is a misreading of the original source, which gives the figure as “eight to ten hundred.”

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The lecture on “Dispensationalism, J. N. Darby and Powerscourt,” from which this article was derived, can be watched on-line in video.