Last year I spent a fair amount of time answering emails sent to the outreach department at newchurch.org, and out of necessity I learned about current Christian beliefs in America – and in the process discovered dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is HUGE in American Christianity (although less so internationally, as far as I know) – and it didn’t exist in Swedenborg’s time.
The basic idea of dispensationalism is that there were several unique “dispensations” to the human race. The divisions vary, but all dispensationalists agree that there was one dispensation for the Jews, one dispensation for Christians, and a final dispensation for “the Kingdom” (Christ’s reign after His second coming). Of course, most Christians agree that Jesus gave a new revelation that in some ways changed the Law of the Old Testament (e.g. no more need for sacrifices) – but dispensationalists believe that there are still separate dispensations for Israel and for everyone else. From Wikipedia:
The relationship between the ancient nations of Israel and Judah (sometimes collectively referred to as Israel or the Jewish people) and the church as the people of God is the key discriminator between Dispensationalism and other views. In the dispensational view, the time in which the church operates, known as the church age or the Christian dispensation, represents a “parenthesis”. That is, it is an interruption in God’s dealings with the Jewish people as a nation as described in the Old Testament, and it is the time when the Gospel was preached and salvation in the present age is offered to the Gentiles and Jews alike. During the present dispensation a small Jewish remnant along with a large Gentile number are to be saved and become part of the Church. Israel as a nation is partially blinded until the fullness of the Gentiles has come. Afterwards however, God’s continued care for the Jewish people as a nation will be revealed after the end of the church age when Israel will be restored to their land and will accept Jesus as their messiah (compare Zech 12:8-10[6]) and therefore “all Israel shall be saved.”
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