July 13, 2020 Show with Gary L Scott & Zach Maxcey

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 13th day of July, 2020, and I'm delighted to have on two men who

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I have had the privilege of sharing a good deal of time of fellowship with, especially in Franklin, Tennessee, not so long ago for a recent conference where I served as the moderator for the audience

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Q &A, but one of these gentlemen I've known for many years, going back to the early 1990s when he was still pastoring in South Carolina.

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But let me introduce these two dear brothers to you. First of all, we have

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Gary Scott. He is the brother that I mentioned that years ago was pastoring at Three Rivers Baptist Church in South Carolina, and I had the privilege of meeting him first by phone, and then later on at the

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John Bunyan Conference in Pennsylvania, and he also introduced me to a brother that became and still is a very dear friend that I have been delighted to call a dear friend for decades,

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Ed Moore, his former youth pastor at Three Rivers Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, and today

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Gary is working with the Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology, and he is also founder of Cross Theater, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Shrub and Zion Radio, Brother Gary Scott.

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Thank you, Chris, it is great to be here today. I look forward to our conversation about New Covenant Theology and particularly how

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Cross Theater is a wonderful way to summarize that and hopefully to integrate that into the way we live.

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Great, and my other guest today is Zach Maxey, and he is intricately involved in the

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Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology, and was delighted that he was the brother that invited me down to Franklin, Tennessee to participate in,

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I believe it was a year ago, they hosted the John Bunyan Conference, which they did in honor of the late

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John Riesinger, who has been known for decades as a primary figure in the

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New Covenant Theology movement, which began in the mid -20th century and sort of split away from the

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Covenant Theology movement, which was also a revival movement in the mid -20th century of Calvinistic Baptists, a resurgence, if you will, of Calvinistic Baptists.

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And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I think this is the first time Zach has ever been on the program, but it's a great pleasure to have you, finally, on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Zach Maxey.

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Thank you for having me, Brother Chris, it is also a delight to be here. Was I correct in that guess that this is the first time you're on?

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Yes, you are correct, this is the first time I've been on the show. Great, and what would be your title there at Providence Theological Institute?

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I am titularly the president, so it's still kind of weird to kind of think of myself in that light, but that is my title.

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Great, and today we are not taking listener calls,

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I just wanted to let, or listener emails, I should say. I sometimes think that I'm running the old show out of New York when we took phone calls from listeners, today we take emails from listeners who have questions, but today we are not doing that, so I just thought

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I'd let you know that up front, so you don't bother writing down a lot of questions if you intended to do so.

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But well, let me start with you with some basic questions to start the show going today.

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Zach, what is Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology? Well, Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology, or PTINCT as we call it abbreviated, we're a

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Christian organization seeking to advance the Biblical Gospel and the

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Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and then there are three kind of sub -goals that we have also going with that, to foster unity among advocates of New Covenant Theology as you described earlier, and then to help heal and bring together doctrinal divides that exist in the body of Christ, so to kind of continue a dialogue between the various groups to promote cooperation, and then three is to promote cross -theater, which

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Brother Gary is leading up. Yes, well

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I'm delighted that I have always maintained close friendships and relationships with brethren from the

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New Covenant Theology movement, going back to the late 1980s, largely through Don Blend, the late

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Don Blend, who was my late wife's pastor at First Baptist Church of Lindenhurst, Long Island, for many years, and Don is now in eternal glory with Christ, but Don was the first individual, having come from, after my conversion that is, having been raised

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Roman Catholic, every church where I've actually been an official member after my salvation, has been a

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Covenant Theology or Confessional Reform Baptist Church, and so Don was the first who explained to me, as a representative himself, what

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New Covenant Theology is, and invited me to the John Bunyan Conferences, which at one time was their annual conference in Pennsylvania, and I attended for quite a number of years with Don and some other folks from First Baptist and Lindenhurst, and have grown to love many of these dear brothers.

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Well, let me also start here, since this is obviously a crucial part of the story that we're discussing.

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Gary, can you tell us, what is cross -theater? Yeah, cross -theater is really a ministry, a kind of creative discipleship ministry, to encourage people to recognize that as believers, we really become players in this great drama of redemption that God is putting on, and it's taken from 1

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Corinthians 1 -9, where the Apostle Paul says, God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena.

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We have become a theater to the world, to angels, and to men. And so we picked up on that thought of, we have become, we believers, the

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Church of Jesus Christ, has become a theater, and a theater is really an arena where the grace of God, the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the gospel of God, is actually going to be played out.

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And so we recognize that God himself is the playwright.

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You know, he's the one that has drawn up the script, planned this out, his son,

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Jesus Christ, becomes both the hero in the midst of this great drama, and he becomes the victim, he lays down his life for us.

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The Spirit of God is the one that directs it, and so heaven and earth is the stage on which this is playing out, and you know, the plot of it is very simple,

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God created a world where he would express his love, and in the context of that, in Genesis 3,

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Adam and Eve, of course, rejected that, and went totally in rebellion against God, and it seemed to raise the question, is this drama going to end as a tragedy, is it going to end in defeat?

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But of course, that was in God's plan from the very beginning, and it provided a context for him to display his mercy.

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And so, instead of God's judgment, he promised that this love that he expressed is going to come to fulfillment through the promise made to Abraham and ultimately the coming of the

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Messiah, and so throughout the Old Testament, we have the story of how

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God is preparing for the Messiah, which is his own son to come, and at the incarnation of Christ, the very

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Son of God comes into this drama, and plays the part of both the victim and the victor, and when he dies and is buried and is raised again, he goes back to heaven, and he sends the

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Spirit of God, who comes and takes God's love and embodies that in us in a very special sense, so that today, the world sees

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God's love through believers, and particularly through the believers gathered together as churches, and we now await the consummation, when

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Christ comes back, the Great Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and we see all of these things come to conclusion.

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And the Heart of Cross Theater is reading the Bible, not as a systematic theology of soteriology and ecclesiology and eschatology and pneumatology and Harmardiology, but recognizing that God has really given us a storyline from creation and the

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Fall and redemption and ultimately consummation, and we want people to understand that story, that storyline of the

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Scripture is ongoing, and we're part of that. And so the Scripture is given to us to help us and instruct us how we actually play our part as key players in this drama.

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So that gives you a quick overview of what we're trying to accomplish in Cross Theater. And in practical terms, how do you conduct

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Cross Theater? I'm assuming that you accept invitations and travel to various churches and perhaps even schools or other institutions, and you speak and you give a demonstration and so forth?

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Yes, and we'd like to do that more. We would like to have more opportunities to present this.

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We have a website up, and still some of that is under construction. The goal is to help churches and coach pastors in how to help their people really embody the

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Gospel so that every church, in essence, is a theater where the love of God is being displayed.

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Every family is a theater where the Father is displaying leadership and love and the

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Mother is displaying her respect for her husband and the way she leads her children.

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Every time we go to work, that's a stage in which we have an opportunity to give witness to the

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Gospel. You know, and so while the world is the stage in which the Gospel plays out, there are many individual stages where we have opportunities either to play the common theme today, as you know, most of our culture today is directed by an evolutionary script, which is, you know, red in tooth and claw, the survival of the fittest.

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And we've seen a lot happening recently in terms of this cultural Marxism, which is the warfare of the classes, the oppressed and the oppressor.

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And Cross Theater is very different than that. It doesn't begin with conflict. It doesn't demand survival and competition.

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But it really, at its heart, is shalom. It's peace. It's the love and the joy and the respect and the glory that the

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Father and the Son and the Spirit share with each other, that God's created a world where that kind of love, that kind of joy can be experienced.

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And so we want to help people integrate this in practical ways.

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It's not academic. It's not abstract. It's not a highbrow thing.

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But every single Christian has different stages, whether it's their home or their work or their school or their neighborhood or their club that they belong to, where they have an opportunity to display, to stage

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God's love. And so we've actually subtitled that Cross Theater, where God stages

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His love. And I assume, since the themes transcend

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New Covenant theology alone, that this would be something that you would be very comfortable accepting in imitation to a

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Covenant theology Reformed Baptist church or other evangelical church, perhaps even an

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Arminian church. Yes, exactly. Part of the goal of Cross Theater was to take the substance of New Covenant theology, and the heart of New Covenant theology is seeing the progressive outworking of God's redemptive plan, or as we call it, the theater that He sets up.

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And so our goal is to see people become part of that.

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And so if somebody is not keenly committed to Covenant theology, they're not going to find it, on the one hand, to be grating that, you know, we're constantly challenging somebody else's view.

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I think they're going to find it to be meaningful, but underneath it ties together the whole movement and the progression, you know, from creation ultimately to consummation.

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And so it is designed to have a broad base, even beyond just the

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Reformed Christianity to general Christians. This really is a message that works for a person that's a believer or an unbeliever, and challenges them to look at this drama that's taking place all around us.

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And just to clarify so our listeners don't have the wrong idea, they should not be expecting to see theatrical performances, or anything like that, when they attend a event.

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That's a great question, because very often we get the idea, when you think of theater, people think of soap operas, they think of Broadway, where all of these performers are pretending to play a part that really isn't theirs.

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And what I say to people is think of theater in terms of the Second World War. There was the

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European theater, there was the Asian -Pacific theater, there was the African theater, and these weren't play things.

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This is where real battles, real victories, real defeats, heroes and villains actually played out a very dramatic part of our history in the

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Second World War. Or if you think of, in terms of surgery, a surgical theater.

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And these are not pretend doctors that are going in pretending to help somebody, these are real doctors that are going into this surgical theater where they're going to save some person's life, where they're going to remove cancer, where they're going to repair some problem with a part of their anatomy that is diseased or damaged in some way.

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And so when you think of theater, we don't want you to think in terms of television, movies,

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Broadway. We want you to think in terms of theater. This is what

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Paul actually said, we have become a theater for the world, to angels and to men.

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And so it's not pretend. One thing that I really like about the approach across theater,

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Chris, is very often when you use the word election or predestination or calling, there's kind of an edge to those things.

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And very often it will erupt into an argument rather than a dialogue.

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So one of the things that cross -theater does is it says, you know, God is the playwright. And that's another way of talking about the counsel and the plan of God.

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He's worked all of these things out. And when we get a casting call, you know, and God casted me as a man, he gave me nearly 50 years now in pastoral ministry.

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And so it's not like I just decided I was going to go in that direction, but God actually called me and placed me into that.

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You know, and the spirit of God is the one that has directed through that and taken me to several different churches over that 50 -year period.

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And so when we talk about theater, you know, we're talking about real -life drama where God is at work, where God is staging his love, and he's doing that through us.

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Great. And I know that this is a work in progress as far as the website is concerned.

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But this archived recording of this program, this interview,

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God willing, will be around for many years to come. So the website is crosstheater, and they spell it the fancy way,

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R -E at the end, not E -R, crosstheater .org. That's right.

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And do you know, Chris, many people don't understand this. Some people think when we spell theater,

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T -H -E -A -T -E -R, that that's the American spelling, and the R -E ending is the

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British spelling. And that's true in a sense, that's not wrong. But what I mean by that is theater,

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T -H -E -A -T -E -R, is the place where you go, you know, to watch a film or a movie.

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But theater, T -H -E -A -T -E -R -E, is really the drama that's taking place.

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So when Paul uses that word, we have become a theater, he's not talking about a place, but he's talking about a drama that's taking place.

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And these apostles are on display, and there are so many things in that text.

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You know, when you go to a theater, there's a stage up front, so everyone that's in that theater can see that.

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And so God doesn't want us to limp through life hiding, and we're in a particularly difficult time culturally with so many things attacking the very things that we believe.

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We don't need to hide, we don't need to dodge, we need to stand on the stage, and we need to play out this drama.

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We need to tell them about a God who loves, a God who created, a God who saves, a

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God who is ultimately going to judge those who refuse to consider his son.

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And so it becomes, it just gripped my heart. Can I take just a moment to kind of tell you how

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I got here, Chris? Yeah, definitely. Do we have time to do that? You know, when I grew up in a kind of a

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Calminian, fundamentalist -type Baptist church, I went to Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, and got the fundamentalism, a little

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Calvinism, but kind of more Arminian, and it was dispensational in its approach.

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And as I matured, I had problems. I began asking questions, and there weren't really good answers to those.

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I then went to seminary, a faith seminary, and ultimately became Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, and there

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I was exposed to covenant theology. And some of the same questions that I had in the dispensational setting,

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I raised there, but didn't get good answers. And so when I went into the ministry,

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I first started in 1973, I came out of Bible College and seminary, neither as a dispensationalist nor covenant theologian.

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And if you would have asked me, who are you, what do you believe, I'd say, well, I believe in historical redemptive approach to the

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Bible, and so you referred to the Bunyan Conferences, and one of the things that preceded that was a conference in the early 80s in Dallas called the

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Dallas Council on Baptist Theology. That was critical for me, because it gave me an opportunity to dialogue with other men that were wrestling with some of the same things.

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And so from that, John Reisinger, and I can list a number of people that were there that were part of that,

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Gary Long, that was so instrumental in leading Providence Theological Institute of Ministry for years now.

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That kind of shaped us, and it's grown from this sense that, how do we understand the storyline and the progress of that, to where we are today with New Covenant theology that's much more developed, much more nuanced.

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And so I've benefited from the challenges to, how do we read the whole

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Bible as one storyline? And, you know, that's brought me to the place of where I am across theater today.

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You mentioned Gary Long, I still to this day, probably for the last,

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I don't know, close to 30 years, I guess, have been giving out his superb little book on Definite Atonement, which

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I think is an excellent treatment of that subject. Yes. And when we come back from our first break, we're going to have

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Zach Maxey explain what New Covenant theology is, and I'm looking forward to hearing that, even though I already have heard it many times, but I can never be told too often by different people, from different perspectives, perhaps, more about this theological wing of the

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Church, especially since I maintain so many close friendships in it.

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our two guests today for the entire program are

37:48

Zach Maxey, who is president of Providence Theological Institute, and we also have joining us

37:56

Gary L. Scott, who is an evangelist and a former pastor and also the founder of Cross Theater.

38:05

And we have come to a point where we wanted to get a definition from Zach Maxey on New Covenant Theology.

38:15

As I said at the outset of the program, I have had close friendships both in New Covenant Theology and in Covenant Theology since all my life as a born -again believer after having left the

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Roman Catholic Church by the mercy of God. I have always been a member of a Reformed Confessional Covenantal Baptist Church.

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But, since my late wife's church was a

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New Covenant Theology church, I have always maintained close friendships with folks from New Covenant Theology.

38:54

And I can say, to be honest, that it's been a shame and something that is a source of sadness to me that more people in both of these camps could not get along with each other as I have been able to do for decades now.

39:12

But, as I was saying earlier, there was a resurgence of Calvinistic Baptists in the mid -20th century, and men that worked side by side were very close friends and one might even say colleagues in ministry, reached a point where they started to drift apart and the differences between New Covenant Theology and Covenant Theology were a primary cause of this.

39:44

And it even happened with two dear brothers, John and Ernie Reisinger.

39:51

In fact, Ernie Reisinger is the founder of the church where I am currently a member, after having moved from New York to Pennsylvania, I have been a member of Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which was founded in the late 1950s by Ernie Reisinger.

40:10

But, Zach, if you could tell us exactly what New Covenant Theology is, and then you could tell us how similar it is to Covenant Theology and where the differences are as well.

40:23

Sure. So, in the 1970s, New Covenant Theology began to emerge as a theological system by individuals who found that they didn't fit cleanly in the camp of Dispensational Theology and the camp of Covenant Theology.

40:41

And so, these were individuals like John Reisinger, Tom Wells, Dr.

40:47

Gary Long, who was the president of PTS, which used to be the name of PTI that we now had up.

40:55

And so, New Covenant Theology has been called a via media, because it finds elements of both of the camps that it agrees with, and then certain areas that it differs from each of them.

41:11

And so, New Covenant Theology, or NCT, is a theological system, and it emphasizes three primary things.

41:19

So, Jesus Christ is the nexus, or the climax, or the center, of God's plan in redemptive history, and that's a singular plan.

41:29

That's one plan of God. The second main element that it emphasizes is that the

41:34

New Testament Scriptures have interpretive priority over the Old Testament Scriptures, due to the

41:40

New Testament Scriptures being God's final revelation. And this is not to undermine the

41:46

Old Testament as God's Word, because, of course, it is still inerrant, it's infallible, it's still God's Word. But it just means, wherever the

41:53

New Testament speaks, whether it's interpreting an Old Testament passage, or whether it's applying a concept, or reinterpreting, or interpreting one of the promises, or a text, it has the final say, because it's the clearest revelation of Jesus Christ.

42:12

And it's the final revelation of God in redemptive history. And number three is that the

42:19

New Covenant truly is a new arrangement between God and man. And so, arguably, the primary difference between Dispensational Theology and New Covenant Theology is that number two, where the

42:33

New Testament Scriptures have interpretive priority over the Old Testament. And then number three is probably the primary difference between NCT and Covenant Theology, that the

42:45

New Covenant is not viewed as a subset or an administration of this overarching

42:53

Covenant of Grace. And so, one thing that I would like to emphasize is that where NCT differs with Dispensational Theology and Covenant Theology, and then the different sub -branches, whether it's

43:09

Westminster Federalism, whether it's 1689 Federalism, the two primary branches in the

43:15

Covenant Theological camp, or Classical Dispensationalism and Progressive Dispensationalism, the two primary branches of the

43:23

Dispensational camp, where NCT differs with these groups, they're all disputable matters of the

43:29

Christian faith. And, like you said earlier, it's a pain to see that we

43:40

Christians tend to major in the minors, because there's so much theology that we agree upon.

43:49

And so, one of the favorite quotes and teachings that I came across when

43:55

I was in seminary, because I'm a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary, is a quotation by Rupertus Maldonius, and I quote this all the time, and it's, "...in

44:04

the essentials, unity, in the non -essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity." So, we should be able to lock arms on the essential matters of the

44:13

Christian faith, so, you know, such things as the inspiration of Scripture, the deity and the humanity of Christ, you know, things like that.

44:23

And then, other areas that fall into the disputable matters of the faith, whether it's differences about baptism, whether it's differences about prophecy, differences of hermeneutics, as long as we agree on the essentials, we should be able to differ with one another in Christian love.

44:44

And one of the messages for this year's John Bunyan Conference, which is a virtual conference due to all the things happening with COVID, one of them is

44:57

New Covenant Theology Defined, and how it compares and differs with Covenant Theology, and the second is

45:05

New Covenant Theology Defined, how it compares and differs with Dispensational Theology.

45:10

And so, in the message, so your question was about Covenant Theology. There's so much that NCP agrees with Covenant Theology on, because most advocates of New Covenant Theology that I personally know are coming more out of the

45:29

Reformed camp than the Dispensational camp, or it's a mixture of the two, but most are coming more from, like, the

45:38

Reformed camp, and there's so many things that we agree on. So, you know, the principles of the

45:44

Reformation, you know, the five solas, Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Christo, Sola Deo Gloria, Sola Gratia, and then the principle of Semper Reformanda, we're always reforming, we're trying to refine our understanding through the inspiration and the illumination of the

46:00

Holy Spirit, to refine our understanding of Scripture and how we apply it with the strength of the

46:06

Holy Spirit. We, of course, agree on Trinitarian Theology, which is the fundamental tenet of the

46:11

Christian faith. We agree on the inspiration of Scripture, Sola Scriptura, and there's even partial agreements in the

46:21

Reformed camp that the New Testament has interpretive priority over the Old Testament.

46:27

But I would say that Covenant Theology and New Covenant Theology apply it differently, as you see, because this is fundamentally a question about hermeneutics, how we interpret the

46:39

Scriptures. And I'm a teacher at a classical Christian school in Massachusetts, and this past year

46:46

I taught Biblical Theology to my high schoolers, and so when we were talking about hermeneutics and how we're looking at the

46:53

Scriptures, I gave them what's essentially what New Covenant Theology calls a

47:00

Christological hermeneutic. And it has four kind of sub -facets to it.

47:06

And so one, it's Christocentric, where Christ is viewed as the center of God's Word.

47:11

It's Christotelic, so Christos and Telos, Christ and end or goal in Greek, and so Christ is the end or the goal of the

47:21

Scriptures and the goal of the Covenants and things such as that. It's Christodoxic, so the way we interpret

47:29

Scripture must be interpreting it in a Christ -glorifying manner, and that the

47:35

Word of God is Christotestic, so it testifies of Christ. And so as Pastor Bill Sasser, who is also a member of the board of PTINCT, he's fond of saying that the

47:48

Bible is a hymn book, an H -I -M book. And so this fundamentally deals how we apply this interpretive principle where the

47:58

New Testament has interpretive priority, and there's a lot of agreement with covenant theological camps, but there are some differences in how the groups apply it.

48:08

And so some of the other commonalities that New Covenant Theology would have with covenant theology, both view that there's one plan of God centered in Jesus Christ, and so you have

48:22

God the Father planning salvation, God the Son executing it, God the

48:27

Holy Spirit applying it. But this also comes up on one of the differences where traditional covenant theology views an eternal covenant of redemption, so a covenant between the members of the

48:39

Godhead. New Covenant Theology would differ with that in just saying that it's primarily just speaking of a plan of God because the word covenant is not used there, but there's still agreement there that there's one plan of God to secure the salvation of the elect.

48:57

There would also be similarities between the views of Pentecost, where New Covenant Theology would agree with dispensational theology that the

49:08

Church came into being at Pentecost, whereas in quite a few

49:13

Reformed circles, Pentecost is primarily viewed as more of an effulgence of the

49:19

Holy Spirit, where all the Old Testament scenes already possess the Holy Spirit, but it's viewed as more of an effulgence, so there would be a difference there.

49:27

There are also some differences on how we view the Law of Moses. And so, although New Covenant Theology would view that the three -partitioning of the

49:41

Law into moral, ceremonial, and civil is beneficial, NCT would differ with Covenant Theology that it should not be divided along those lines.

49:52

And so NCT would view the Law as a unit, and so since the Old Covenant was temporary by divine design, that means that the

49:59

Law has gone away and it's been replaced by something different, which

50:04

NCT would view as the Law of Christ. And so, but nevertheless, when it comes to matters of eschatology and a lot of the

50:18

Church issues, there's a lot of agreement across the board in terms of, say,

50:24

Church government, primarily more with the 1689 Reformed Baptist grouping, eschatology, there's a large amount of similarity and commonality there.

50:37

Also, with various Church issues, with the centrality of preaching, the emphasis on Church discipline, the view that there's two ordinances, and there's some differences on how to apply that because, of course, in Covenant Theology, with the two branches you have

50:55

Westminster Federalism tending to be more paedobaptistic, the baptism of infants, with 1689

51:03

Federalism, Believers' Baptism, and so NCT would agree more with 1689

51:08

Federalism. And so those are some various ways, but these are, again,

51:13

I just want to emphasize, these are non -essential matters of the Christian faith, the differences between these theological camps.

51:21

So we agree on much more than we disagree, and we should be able to lock arms on what we agree and then have a fair,

51:30

Christlike discussion with one another when we differ. Yes, I have always found that to be the case.

51:38

And just to clarify, lest some of our listeners hearing you for the first time or hearing about New Covenant Theology for the first time develop a misunderstanding, you are not antinomian and the

51:55

Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, even though that, in the view of New Covenant theologians, was specifically and solely intended for Israel, Jesus Christ's law in the

52:08

New Covenant includes nine of those Ten Commandments. Am I right? That is correct.

52:15

That is correct. So NCT has been labeled antinomian by some, and myself and others, of course, we would view that as a misnomer, and we would point primarily to a text like 1

52:31

Corinthians 9. So, for example, Paul speaking of, as although he was not under the law, referring to under the law of Moses, he became like one under the law of Moses so that he might win

52:44

Jews to the Christian faith. And then to those not under the law, he became like one not under the law, although he himself is not without the law of God, but he's enamos

52:54

Christum, he's in law to Christ or under the law of Christ. And so then the question, so NCT would hold that Christians are not under the law of Moses, because that's attached to the

53:07

Old Covenant that has gone away, but we are under the New Covenant law of Christ.

53:14

And so how, and this is a question within even New Covenant theology itself, and it's an ongoing discussion, but typically how

53:21

I and others, many others who, if we had to define it, we would define it this way, that it's the two greatest commandments, so love of God and love of neighbor, and as you said, nine of those commandments are carried over into the

53:42

New Covenant law of Christ, and they're actually amplified to a degree that no one can possibly keep perfectly, let alone even partially or imperfectly without the empowerment of the

53:58

Holy Spirit, but nine of those are carried over, and it's not only the two greatest commandments, it's also the commands and the teaching and the example of Jesus Christ as we see in the

54:09

New Testament, it's also the teachings, commands, and example of the apostles, and then it's all of Scripture, so the

54:16

Old Testament included. In fact, we have to let you pick up where you left off when we return, this is our midway break that we're going into, and when we come back, we'll also have

54:25

Gary Scott chime in, but folks, please be patient with us because in the middle of the show,

54:32

Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program twice daily in a pre -recorded format, in morning drive and then in the evening, they require of us a longer break in the middle because they, according to FCC regulations, have to localize this show to Lake City, Florida, and they air their own public service announcements and other local things in Lake City, Florida, while we air our globally heard commercials.

55:03

So, please use this time wisely and write down as much of the information as you can for as many of the advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and more successfully patronize them, which,

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God willing, will mean that they will stick around as our advertisers because they see results, and that will mean that we will be able to stay on the air because we require the finances provided by our advertisers.

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Before we return to Zach Maxey and Gary Scott we just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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First of all I hope that you all tune in to a program that is coming up later this month in July that I think that you will all be blessed by.

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I need a church in the subject in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in actually we're not taking questions today that was a force of habit but we are now back with our discussion with Zach Maxey president of Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology and Gary Scott an itinerant evangelist and founder of Cross Theatre who is also very much involved with the

01:16:23

Providence Theological Institute and Zach I don't know if you had completed what you were saying when you were comparing before the break you were showing some of the differences and similarities that New Covenant Theology has both with Covenant Theology and with Dispensational Theology.

01:16:44

Yeah well just to ensure that I fully answered your question in regards to what

01:16:51

New Covenant Theology's view of the law is and just to remind the listeners

01:16:58

NTT has sometimes been labeled antinomian and many within New Covenant Theology feel that that's a misnomer just because although NTT believes that we're not under the law of Moses but we're under the law of Christ and as you said before the break nine of the nine of the ten reappear.

01:17:20

Somebody disciplining a child in the background what is that noise? You hear that smacking noise?

01:17:29

Anyway I heard that that's not on my end. Okay all right I'm sorry

01:17:34

I interrupted you Oh no problem. NTT points to 1st

01:17:41

Corinthians 9 so Paul himself says I'm not under the law of Moses but I came as one as one under the law so that I might win those under the law and to those who are not under the law

01:17:52

I became as one not under the law so that I might myself might win them the gospel though I am not without the law of God I am under the law of Christ and so NTT typically defines that and this is an ongoing discussion and question even in NTT circles but the law of Christ is the two greatest commandments so love of God and love of neighbor of which the nine of the ten commandments that reoccur and are amplified in the

01:18:18

New Testament are derived from and that it's Christ's example in teaching it's the commands and teachings of the

01:18:26

Apostles in the New Testament and it's all scripture interpreted in light of Christ so NTT is not is not a bunch of Marcionites so we don't cut out our

01:18:37

Old Testament but instead we try to read the Old Testament in light of the

01:18:42

Lord Jesus Christ so it's still instructive so although we are not under the Old Covenant all of the

01:18:50

Old Testament scriptures are still instructive for us provided that we're reading and understanding them in light of the

01:18:57

Lord Jesus Christ well Gary Scott what are some of the key distinctives of New Covenant theology that perhaps

01:19:07

Zach didn't have time to mention in his presentation well maybe it will help if I follow up a bit on kind of my own personal experience early on in the in the 80s and the 90s and some of the the challenges that came particularly with those coming from a

01:19:29

Westminster Covenant perspective and the charge that's often made of antinomianism is as Zach said we think of misnomer but also it involves a misunderstanding and the misunderstanding is that when we challenge the ongoing validity of the law in exhaustive detail as Greg Bonson was fond of saying that it sounds like we are against the law and of course that is far from the truth and a critical passage is the

01:20:12

Matthew 5 passage where he says we Christ did not come to abolish the law and the prophets and again it's not the

01:20:23

Ten Commandments but it's the Old Testament scripture but he came to bring them to fulfillment and so the foundation of New Covenant theology is not one of rejecting law and somehow embracing some other approach to living but it's embracing the law but as it comes to its fulfillment in Christ and that's what

01:20:49

Zach was saying in terms of it being a crystal centric and crystal telec and crystal doctic and so forth that that it is not that God said

01:20:59

I'm going to try this out I'm going to give them ten commands and we go through the Old Testament and God said you know

01:21:06

I didn't work out very well I think I'm going to change it I'm going to do something different you know that's not the picture at all but what

01:21:13

God began from the beginning and and the Book of Galatians is critical in helping us when

01:21:20

Paul asked well for what purpose was the law given you know and the reality is the

01:21:26

Old Covenant the Mosaic Covenant established at Sinai is time bound it and and this is where my experience with early on it was more of a conflict with those committed to covenant theology they heard me saying that I didn't believe in the law but they really were they that that was founded on a

01:21:51

Puritan view of the law that saw the Ten Commandments as abiding moral law that could never be changed

01:21:58

I remember my own reading of Hebrews when there's a change of the priesthood there must of necessity be a change of the law well something has changed you know and even those who are the

01:22:09

Sabbatarians have to acknowledge we don't keep the sixth and the seventh day you know but now we worship on Sunday so there are things that have changed and so that the misunderstanding has been not a rejection of law per se but an understanding of the law that gives it a dimension and an explanation that really does not fit with Scripture and so our desire and concern is not to call somebody a gnomion you know or be called an antinomian you know our desire is to have a dialogue and say well how do we how do we understand

01:22:50

Galatians 3 and 4 how do we read the passages in Romans where Paul says that Christ is the end of the law everyone that in kind of our our camp of reformed whether it's a new covenant whether it's

01:23:06

Westminster whether it's Westminster federalism 1689 federalism we all are a basic agreement about the inspiration of Scripture so the question is how do we take these passages and how do we put them together and the other comment that I would make is that the hermeneutical questions are central and they're key to this and the the basic problem that I had with dispensationalism and I grew up in dispensationalism

01:23:39

I was taught that in Bible college so it's not just an academic understanding of that but that was a part of my my life early on and when

01:23:50

I moved away from that it was with cause and it wasn't just a knee -jerk position but the problem that I saw with them is they went back to the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and they keyed on the promise of the land and they saw the land promise as being central to such a degree that everything in the rest of Scripture has to be made to fit that and it it simply amplifies what those acts said earlier that we see the

01:24:26

New Testament as having the last word the final word that the the complete statement of that but they tended to go back to the old and make that foundational and everything else the index back to that and so they made the land and Palestine and and the

01:24:47

Jerusalem so foundational to their system and they missed the typology that's behind that you know that that there's a movement that that all of these things about the land from the

01:25:00

Garden of Eden to Canaan to you know the new heavens and the new earth there to be understood in a progressive flow of this outflow of redemptive history on the other hand covenant theologians and and those

01:25:16

I have many that have been friends we've had many dialogues through the years they tended to do the same thing but not with the promise of the land but with the promise of the sea you know believers and their children and they tend to make the central pillar on which their system is going to rise or fall and I believe that they make some of the same errors only in a different way that the dispensationalists do and not letting the rest of the scripture define that and so a third thing that I would say that the difference is where new covenant theology is very careful to follow the the covenants as they're actually named and and cut in scripture as they're established in scripture where covenant theology tends to make that a theological construct and so the covenant of redemption the covenant of grace the various covenants that they talk about have no biblical foundation in scripture it's a theological construct that they use to put the scripture together and our view is we don't need a theological construct the scripture already puts them together and the covenants from the covenant made with Adam and not everyone is willing to call that a covenant the covenant made with Noah the covenant made with Abraham the covenant made with through Moses the covenant made with David the covenant made the new covenant made with Christ that gives us kind of the the backbone it ties together all of these sections of scripture and so my heart is that that ninety -some percent of what covenant theology embraces

01:27:07

I'm right along with them you know and the desire is let's have a dialogue about those areas and make sure that we're understanding what we're actually saying and espousing and let's get away from you know the the tags the negative tags that are used not to encourage dialogue but to shut that down and my heart is to see a resurgence of I think as I said this is the beginning of unity we want to foster unity we we don't want to be divisive and schismatic we believe what we believe and we want to open the scripture and show you the foundation for that and we know you know one day

01:27:54

Chris you in fact will come to a full understanding of this and you know you'll be standing with us we hope it's on this side of glory but at least when we get there we know that you're going to be in full agreement of that our desire is to have a dialogue so that it's it's not it's not a you know a hobby horse that you know that we want to beat everyone over the head with if we want to understand what

01:28:23

God is doing we want to love that and embrace that so our heart is to stay with how we understand scripture and invite ironic dialogue that we're going back and forth you know in a helpful way to encourage others to join in this conversation and growing grace through that yes

01:28:53

I am thankful that the church where I was saved back in the mid -1980s which was then

01:29:03

Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville Long Island later to merge with First Baptist Church of Merrick Long Island and become

01:29:12

Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick that church although a confessional 1689

01:29:23

Covenantal Reform Baptist Church always allowed into the pulpit for conferences and special invitations and so on some of the men from the

01:29:37

New Covenant theology position I remember the times that I really enjoyed our dear brother

01:29:44

Tom Wells preaching from the pulpit of the church where I was a member in New York and also to see

01:29:56

Tony Costa there and a number of the the brethren that represent

01:30:03

New Covenant theology and so it's just been a part of the reason why

01:30:09

I've always maintained close friendships and I know that there's some of the names that are slipping from my mind right now but I know that there were other brethren as well well

01:30:21

Chris it reminds me you perhaps have heard the story about the guy that was on the Brooklyn Bridge and he was going to jump and it was a

01:30:29

Christian down below that was trying to talk him out of it and he let him come up and you know they got talking and said

01:30:35

I'm a Christian we said I'm a Christian too and I'm reformable I'm reformed too and you know they went on and about 18 things they agreed on and then he said what version of the

01:30:47

Bible do you read and he said King James and he pushed him off and said die Heretic the point is we can agree on so much of that but if there is a disagreement on one of these technical things how we read the law you know and and is the law you know completely enforces it in force is it

01:31:11

Constable feminine Christ how is that to be that that's not that's not a simple thing to answer and that's why we need time to sit down and have the dialogue and look at not our theology books but look at the text of Scripture how do we put the

01:31:29

Scripture together how do we take Galatians 3 and 4 how do we take Matthew chapter 5 17 through 19 how do we take the key sections in Romans 4 and and Romans 10 and and how do we craft together a statement that accurately reflects the

01:31:49

Scripture we're not trying to create a system we're trying to take the the truths that we see in Scripture and allow them to shape a form for us that we're going to embrace and one of particularly thankful for when

01:32:07

I started in ministry you know I didn't have anybody's book you know that told me this is what

01:32:14

New Covenant theology was it didn't exist in 1970 and and so I had the opportunity as a pastor and in those days

01:32:25

I would do five or six messages a week so it gave me lots of opportunity to cover lots of Scripture so the theology for me did not develop from a systematic or because I went to a conference on New Covenant theology or covenant theology or dispensational theology it developed through the exegesis of the text of Scripture and particularly as you work through those

01:32:51

New Testament texts and I can't tell you how profound the study of Galatians was to me just listening to what the scripture says and then trying to make sure that however

01:33:03

I put the pieces together it respected that and you know and and did not somehow undermine what it does say and I just remembered one of the other brothers who

01:33:16

I have not heard from or about in decades but one of the

01:33:22

New Covenant theology folks who had been invited at least on a couple of occasions to preach at the church where I was a member of the 1689

01:33:33

Covenantal Reform Baptist Church was Tom Smith of Randall Street Baptist Church in West Virginia I don't know if any of you folks have ever heard from him lately

01:33:47

I have no idea where he is he used to be in Charles Charleston West Virginia he has gone in a very interesting direction and is now a priest in I forget the some branch of the

01:34:03

Anglican Church in Texas really I'm hoping at least it's a conservative

01:34:09

Anglican Church I haven't had contact with him personally for many years but I know that that's where he is now because I do have some very different setting yeah

01:34:21

I do have some very close friends who are strong Calvinistic Anglican pastors and scholars even the 39 articles of religion and so on now some of the listeners might not know that some of the more prominent members of the

01:34:43

New Covenant theology camp include DA Carson and Douglas Moo and of course

01:34:52

Fred Zaspel has become a very prolific writer anybody else that you care to mention

01:34:59

I'm sorry

01:35:04

I would include Blake White in there okay I would also include in that Steve Wellum and Peter Gentry who've been frequent speakers they may not quickly embrace the tag of New Covenant theology but their progressive covenantalism is so similar to that you know there's very few points of any significant difference yes

01:35:37

I've very much enjoyed getting to know those two brothers the Wellums and I've only interviewed

01:35:45

Steve so far but I look forward to having them both on and enjoyed meeting them face -to -face at the

01:35:52

John Bunyan conference that you two men help facilitate in Franklin Tennessee and both of them are instructors for courses that one of my pastor's mother takes in Cork Ireland she's not don't get too nervous here she's not entering into the pastoral ministry or anything she just wanted to learn more about God's Word and she enrolled in the

01:36:21

Munster Bible College there in Cork Ireland and both of the Wellum brothers have have taught there but we're going to be actually as you may know we're going to be addressing the differences between New Covenant theology and progressive covenantalism and we're going to do that right after our final break so if anybody else would like and I keep

01:36:44

I keep leading into an invitation for questions and I keep forgetting that we're not taking questions so be patient as we air a few ads the break is not going to be nearly as long as the last one but don't go away we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors

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Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ Jesus the King and his doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County Long Island and beyond I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have for more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church go to hopereformedli .net

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that's hopereformedli .net or call 631 696 5711 that's 631 696 5711 tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram Long Island New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron Welcome back this is

01:44:53

Chris Arnson and if you just tuned in our two guests have been today and will continue to be until 6 p .m.

01:45:02

Eastern Zach Maxey the president of the

01:45:07

I'm sorry I just had it right in front of me and it disappeared the

01:45:12

Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology and Gary L Scott founder of Cross Theater who is also very actively involved in the

01:45:23

Providence Theological Institute and as I mentioned before we went to the commercial break

01:45:30

I was going to ask you both and perhaps this time we could start with Zach what is the difference between New Covenant Theology and progressive covenantalism um well the vast majority in CT and progressive covenantalism agree and in fact if you were to pick up dr.

01:45:53

Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellen's book Kingdom through Covenant in the first edition they actually mentioned that progressive covenantalism was a subset or a subspecies of New Covenant Theology in the subsequent editions they modified that to where there's if they no longer identify it that closely although the vast majority again the two groups agree and and I'll I'm I'll define what they view as the differences

01:46:27

I mean we still have them on at conferences and they're wonderful brothers and since we agree on the vast majority they have the freedom to speak on differences or whatever they feel led to but in their own words and this is from progressive covenantalism which is a book by Stephen J.

01:46:45

Wellen and Brent Parker now it sounds like somebody is chopping vegetables in the back and somebody see if that could be brought to silence for a moment

01:46:54

I don't know if you guys hear that but there's chopping going on or something I mean

01:47:00

I'm sorry I interrupted you Zach go ahead oh no they list the differences in their introduction that some in New Covenant Theology deny a creation covenant and and some do not hold to a pre -fall covenant between God and Adam they also list the you know the question surrounding

01:47:27

Christ active obedience and so some in NCT view that that is a an unnecessary holdover from Reformed Theology although most most folks in NCT actually agree with the imputation of both

01:47:43

Christ passive and active obedience to the believer and then another one is that they also have distanced themselves from the label because they view that some in NCT circles hold little instructive place for the

01:48:01

Mosaic law in the church's life and they wouldn't say that the believers under the

01:48:07

Old Covenant but or the Mosaic law but that it's still instructive because it's still scripture and that's a position that I myself and many others agree with and and then there are some other minor distinctions such as whether or not the

01:48:22

Old Covenant was gracious and so they view that the Old Covenant was gracious whereas some in NCT have totally said that it's not and of course there there are elements of course that of grace that are in that covenant where God is joining himself to the nation of Israel and then and then distinction such as the conditional and unconditional that they're not cleanly defined and then there's overlap so so those are some of the differences they cite in their own words but the vast majority

01:48:56

PCI agrees with them and so I'm actually going to be trying to have a dialogue with with leaders in NCT just to get a dialogue going to see if we can work out some of these questions and see okay is there really that much of a difference to where we're going to relabel something so so but those are some of the differences but but I would still say

01:49:23

I still kind of view them under the overall umbrella of NCT just because I agree with with everything primarily that they just define there but that that's in their work progressive covenant yes and when

01:49:36

I was at the John Bunyan conference in Franklin Tennessee moderating the

01:49:42

Q &A session I discovered from the Welland brothers one other distinction between their view and New Covenant theology not that everybody in New Covenant theology has this opinion or position but many people that I've met from within New Covenant theology believe that when we gather as a corporate body for worship it could be

01:50:11

Sunday it could be Monday could be Tuesday you know we could have completely avoid

01:50:17

Sunday altogether without violating any principle of God and Scripture in the

01:50:23

New Covenant in the New Testament but the Welland brothers believe that Sunday has a specific significance and it is the

01:50:30

Lord's Day although they wouldn't have a ceveterian view they still believe that it is the

01:50:37

Lord's Day and should be honored I don't know if you two are aware of that but that's that seemed to come up during the

01:50:44

Q &A session yes and I'll just say briefly

01:50:50

I have heard that view directly from folks who have espoused it and they do hold that you know based off of such scriptures as Romans 14 that Christians would be able to meet on any day so some

01:51:03

I was aware of that well one thing

01:51:08

I had one comment yes well just in in personal discussion with Steve Welland part of their reluctance to identify with New Covenant theology is because New Covenant theology has several different strands that are attempting to make that normative they don't agree you know there are as Zach had laid out there are these different groups who have different emphasis and so I think part of their reluctance is not to be drawn into the inter -Nicene warfare you know within New Covenant theology and Zach and I have talked about this in the board of New Covenant theology have talked about of Provident ministry have talked about this is that we think that the differences are so minor you know compared with a huge differences that rather than to fragment and divide there needs to be constructive dialogue and I really applaud

01:52:18

Zach for the effort to bring together you know some of the leaders from these various factions but I think again part of the reluctance of Welland and Gentry is they don't want to be drawn into you know these provincial debates that are taking place they want to maintain a high road and say this is what the scripture says and so I think it is strategic in one sense and not totally you know theological.

01:52:56

Could you give a little bit more detail on some of these debates and controversies in NCT? Yeah I think

01:53:05

Zach can answer that with more clarity than I could.

01:53:13

Some of the biggest areas so so in accordance with that dialogue that I'm trying to set up,

01:53:19

I'm also trying to kind of categorize at least the major differences within NCT and as Gary said we agree on most of everything they're so minor but some of them are again whether or not there's a pre -fall covenant between God and Adam so some hold that there is some hold that there isn't some hold that that they're just kind of agnostic on the issue well whatever's back there is covenant -like and it's certainly expanded on later in the scriptures there are some where there are differences on how to exactly define what the law of Christ is and so in past works like I think

01:54:02

Steve Lair's book but Steve Lair has since left New Covenant Theology as I understand it but there's some folks that hold that only the commands in the

01:54:13

New Testament apply whereas whereas others hold that the view that's more espoused with the way that we describe in this program where it's the two greatest commandments the example in teaching of Christ of his

01:54:25

Apostles and all of scriptures interpreted in light of Jesus and there is actually a debate in there on how exactly do we find to define the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer so is it just the passive obedience is it the active obedience or do we need to even make that distinction at all and just say it's the total obedience of Christ and so so again those are some of those are probably the principal ones and they're even some eschatological ones so so I completely enjoy reading

01:55:06

Fred Zaspel's work but he tends to take more of a dispensational pre -millennial view of the

01:55:12

Millennium but again this is a disputable matter of the faith and I remember him vociferously

01:55:19

I remember Fred vociferously disagreeing with John Riesinger at one of the old

01:55:27

Bunyan conferences that his view was dispensational he was defending a historic pre -millennial view and John kept describing it as dispensational and that was getting under Fred's skin during that that very well -remembered

01:55:47

Bunyan conference just some want to make sure that Fred hears at least one person say that he's not a dispensationalist yeah and Chris if I may there's a wonderful book by Blake White it's called

01:56:02

What is New Covenant Theology it's a very quick read very small book and it basically emphasizes seven principles and the vast majority of folks in New Covenant Theology agree on most if not all of them and so number one if there's one plan of God centered in Jesus Christ number two is that the

01:56:22

Old Testament is to be interpreted in light of the centrality of Christ or another way of saying the New Testament scriptures have interpretive priority three the

01:56:30

Old Covenant was temporary by divine design for the law is a unit that stands or falls together five the

01:56:37

Christians are not under the law of Moses but under the law of Christ and then six all members of the

01:56:43

New Covenant community have full forgiveness of sins and earns well by the Holy Spirit and seven by virtue of their union with Christ the church is the eschatological or end -time

01:56:53

Israel most if not all of everyone in NCT agrees with those seven points and if you actually look on the endorsements in that book which is actually a very encouraging sign most is not all of the camps in NCT are represented by the endorsements on that book so so most of the major strands are listed there which those are the kind of the key points in NCT that we most if not all agree on now as Blake agree more than we disagree was

01:57:25

Blake the late Richard Bennett's pastor that day spring in Texas no

01:57:36

I think you're I think you're talking about Jackson boy yet or yeah that's who I'm thinking of I'm sorry you're right you're right well

01:57:47

Richard Bennett just happened to be a very close friend of mine who went home to be with the Lord about I don't know less than a year ago well

01:57:54

I want to make sure that our listeners have the contact information again that they need to maintain a knowledge of what's going on with you to first of all with the the

01:58:12

Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant theology that website that you can go to is

01:58:20

PT I nct .org that's PT I nct .org

01:58:27

and then of course cross theater is cross theater .org and once again theater is spelt with an

01:58:35

RE at the end not an ER and it's been a joy having you both on the program

01:58:42

I look forward to having you both back and perhaps we can set up a dialogue on the show sometime between some representatives of New Covenant theology and Covenant theology or any of the other branches of Sovereign Grace that exists within the church today.

01:59:04

That sound like a good idea? Well thank you brethren and I want to thank everybody who listened today and I just want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far far greater