The Five Points of Amillennialism | w/ Dr. Jeffrey Johnson

The Apologetic Dog

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So the gospel, when you look at Jesus Christ and the doctrine of justification by faith alone, it's like looking at theology zoomed in, and you're getting to the heart.

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What's the heart? What's the most important doctrine of all the doctrines? And you keep zooming in, you get to this doctrine called justification.

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And that is central. But if you start zooming out, you get into covenant theology.

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And if you keep zooming out, you get into eschatology. And you want your eschatology to be congruent or consistent with your gospel, with the gospel.

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So I actually would argue that Omelanism is the gospel zoomed out to all of the

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Redemptive History. Well, hello and welcome back to the

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Apologetic Dog, where it's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of grace.

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And so if you've been with this ministry very long, then you've seen 1 Timothy 6 .20, where the

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Apostle Paul says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so what he means is the deposit gospel of grace.

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And we do this by warring against pagan philosophies, exposing contradictions that falsely call themselves knowledge.

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And so we do that with the Word of God that's transcendental. It's true, it's self -attesting, and that's what we are equipped with, is the

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Word of God as we put on the entire body armor of God. So thank you for tuning in to the

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Apologetic Dog. By quick announcement, I would like to inform you of a conference coming up in February, where Jeffrey Rice is hosting

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Why Calvinism? This is a question revolved around the sovereignty of God. Cannot wait to see these gentlemen really get into some of the clarity about who

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God is and His sovereignty, and who man is as a part of the creation, and how we have been created ultimately all to the praise of His glorious grace.

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But there's going to be a pre -conference. And so this is where Dr. Sam Frost and myself will be taking turns giving presentations about the dangers of full preterism.

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And so if you're in the Tennessee, I don't know if I'm saying it right, Tullahoma area, you can reach out to Jeffrey Rice and get more information about that.

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But I'd love to see you, especially if you're in the Tennessee area, if you just love the Word of God, and you can maybe carve this out in your schedule towards the middle and end of February.

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So you don't want to miss that. Well, today we have a very special guest with us. This is Dr. Jeffrey Johnson.

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How are you, sir? Man, I'm doing good. Thanks for having me on your podcast. Absolutely.

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I got to meet you just a couple months ago at G3, and so that was a huge honor. And you're not too far from Jonesboro.

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You're in Conway. Is that like an hour and a half or something? Yeah, maybe an hour and a half, two hours.

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I was born in Batesville, which is between us, so I'm quite familiar with Jonesboro.

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Great place. Please introduce yourself more in depth to everybody, more who you are, what you do, and some of the works that you've put out there where people can find that.

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Yeah, I'm a pastor foremost. Well, I'm married. I'm a husband, most importantly. I have four children.

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I live here in Conway, Arkansas, which is not too far from Little Rock. But I've been pastoring almost 25 years.

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It's hard to believe, but in about 14 months, I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary as a church—the church that I pastor,

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Grace Bible Church in Conway, was established in our living room. We're now basically in college, so it's 25 years old.

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And then I'm also the president of Grace Bible Theological Seminary, which is a ministry out of our church.

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So we have 85 students and almost a full faculty, and so I'm very thankful to be a part of that ministry.

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And then also, I started a publishing company in 2010, and now we've grown to the point that we're putting out one new book a month, which is exciting.

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So we have new releases coming out every month. And on top of that, well, mainly if I have time left over,

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I like riding bikes and things like that. Wow, you're a bike rider, huh?

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I'm just getting into it. I used to call myself a snowboarder, but if you haven't been to the mountains in four years, it's like,

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I can't say I'm a snowboarder anymore. And I used to be a skateboarder when I was a kid, but I'm too old for that.

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So mountain biking is kind of my new endeavor. That is phenomenal.

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And so you have your own publishing company too. That's really exciting. You've got a lot of things going on down there in Conwayland. Yeah, we do publishing, training men for the ministry, and pastoring.

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Well, praise God. You'll have to make your way over here at some point to Jonesboro. We'd love to show you around 12 -5.

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We are just now in the process of moving into a new church building, kind of downtown Jonesboro.

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And so we are really excited, Dr. Jeffery. That's awesome. That's awesome.

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Yes, sir. Glad you're there. Jonesboro's needed a good church for a good while. Yeah, our heart is healthy churches.

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And so that's kind of the mindset behind 12 -5 church is that's a reference to Romans 12 verse 5, to the church body.

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Even though we're individually one of another, we're one together in Christ. And so a healthy church, the way we're looking at really trying to paint this vision for people is gospel culture.

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Yes, fellowship, building those deep -rooted relationships are incredibly important, but also being very grounded theologically, sound doctrine, letting that inform how we live life together.

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So it's been exciting because we just completed three years of our church plant, and hopefully,

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Lord willing, many more to come. So yeah, we're still, we're fresh on the block in Jonesboro. That's awesome.

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Yeah, hopefully I can come up. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll have to have you maybe come speak on the topic that we're going to be diving into today.

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And so I read your book recently, The Five Points of All Millennialism. Now I have to say, I've been studying eschatology for a number of years now, and for a long time,

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I was in the dispensational pre -millennial framework, which is definitely within orthodoxy.

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So when I say that to people, it's not like I've arrived. I've just, I've had many questions over the years.

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And so really studying what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God, and especially in relation to the covenants.

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And so I've stumbled across a lot of your work. You wrote another book called The Kingdom of God, which is very, very well written and almost a good foundation to this book.

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So I'm sure we'll make a lot of cross -references there. But I want to ask you, so what made you want to write this book on The Five Points of All Millennialism?

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Well, I've been wanting to write this book for about 15 years. In fact,

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I started writing this book about 15 years ago, and then something happened, and as things go, you move on or don't finish something.

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And finally, I've written several books in between, and I just wanted something simple.

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I thought there needed to be something, kind of an introduction to the topic. There's a lot of wonderful books on all millennialism, and my book is definitely not the best book or the book on the topic, but I didn't design it to be the book or the most important book on the topic.

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I designed it to be something short and easy to understand, an introduction for those who just want to get a basic grasp of this position.

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Even if people read it and doesn't come to the same conclusions, at least they could say, okay, now

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I understand what all millennialism is as a system. And I do seek to be persuasive in the sense

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I'm trying to, in some sense, present this position in a way that people could grasp it and hopefully believe it.

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But at the end, you know, I love my dispensationalist friends, historical pre -mill, post -mill guys.

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We can agree to differ on this, but it's good to know what people believe, and hopefully this book is a good understanding of the all millennialism position.

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Well, I appreciate you bringing back up kind of the pre -millennial crowd, whether it's dispensational, historic, and then even the post -millennialism.

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We can all bind together on the essentials of eschatology, which your book, you know, touches on here.

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And so I just have so much charity and a heart for iron sharpening iron in the world of eschatology.

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But even though we agree on the essentials and we're saying there's healthy disagreement for the non -essentials,

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Dr. Jeffrey, here in Jonesboro, full preterism has been creeping in.

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And so I've really seen opportunity to say, hey, in the world of eschatology, we need to bind together, whether you're pre -mill, post -mill, or all -mill on the essentials, because our blessed hope is actually at stake.

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And so that's where I've really tried to understand, okay, apologetics doesn't just touch on soteriology, you know, contending for the gospel of grace, which is something

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I definitely, you know, strive for in this apologetics ministry. But it definitely has ramifications for eschatology in things.

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We study first things, our protology, and how all things are working together for a particular end.

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And so I've been able to join forces with another ministry called Eschatology Matters, because it is true, however you view the end times will affect how we live today.

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So do you have any thoughts along with those things? Yeah, absolutely. You know, there are certain truths about end times that are essential.

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The physical resurrection from the dead, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, that if we deny that there is a future resurrection, and we're denying the resurrection as the

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Sadducees denied the resurrection, it undermines the heart of the gospel, because if Christ didn't raise from the dead, then we, and all of our message is false, and we of all people are hopeless, and we're giving our life to a vain thing.

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So Paul connects the future resurrection with Christ's resurrection, and so full preterism would deny a future resurrection.

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And then the denial of a physical return of the Lord Jesus Christ, same way that he ascended.

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The book of Acts tells us he's going to come back. And these are core doctrines when it comes to eschatology that all the major systems affirm.

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And this is why we can differ and yet have unity on some essential truths about lasting events.

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And so there are certain truths about end times that we must believe. There are other things, the nature of the kingdom, that's really where the division is, is how do we define the kingdom of God?

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Now we can debate about various other little things of rapture, no rapture, tribulation, antichrist, all those things come into play, but ultimately the real debate among eschatology is what is the kingdom of God, exactly defining that.

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And I think it touches more than eschatology. Today we're dealing with Christian nationalism, and that is a really a question of what is the kingdom of God.

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I would say even the difference in distinctions between Presbyterian theology and Baptist theology has to deal with what is the kingdom of God and what incorporates and who's included in this kingdom.

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And I... Didn't you write a book that touches on that issue? Sure, yeah.

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You know, and one of the things that, you know, I'm a Baptist, I'm a Reformed Baptist, and one of the things that I think is important for me is that my theology is not piecemealed together or patched together.

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Like I've read this guy, oh, I like what he says. I read that guy, well, I like what... One's an Anglican, one's a

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Presbyterian, one's a Baptist, one's who knows what they are, and I'm just kind of piecing my theology together.

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And my theology is inherently inconsistent with itself, but I'm blind to the tension or inconsistency in my belief system.

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So what I've wanted to do throughout my life, and especially in the last several years, is be consistent with myself and obviously not have my own system determine my exegesis of my text, of my scripture reading.

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So I want to be... We all want to be biblically faithful to the text. But as we think about a lot of the divisions, especially on eschatology, it's not so much a division on last event things, such as the

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Antichrist and so forth, or tribulation, rapture, no rapture. It's really, like I said, it's really about the nature of the kingdom of God, and the nature of the kingdom of God has to be answered not from one proof text, just from one

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Bible verse or a couple Bible verse. That nature of the kingdom has to be rooted in your covenant theology, your understanding of the covenants, and that has to be understood in the light of the gospel.

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And so for me, it's very important that my theology is coherent in the heart of my theology, and I hope everybody would say this.

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I think Luther would say this, Calvin would say this. The heart of our theology is the gospel, and particularly in the heart of the gospel is this doctrine called justification by faith alone.

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And upon that, Luther and Calvin both said something very similar that upon this hinges all of other doctrines of theology.

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And if we get the gospel wrong and justification wrong, everything's going to be negatively affected.

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But if we understand the gospel, that's going to tell us exactly, or it's going to inform our understanding of the kingdom of God, and that's going to inform our understanding of the new covenant, and that's going to understand our understanding of the old covenant, and that's going to be the controlling metric of our eschatology.

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And I like to tell people that my eschatology, or at least all millennialism, from my perspective, it's like if you have an iPad or iPhone or smartphone, how you zoom out or zoom into a picture, you take your fingers and you stretch it out and it zooms in, and then you can squeeze it in and the picture zooms out.

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So the gospel, when you look at Jesus Christ and the doctrine of justification by faith alone, it's like looking at theology zoomed in, and you're getting to the heart.

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What's the heart? What's the most important doctrine of all the doctrines? And you keep zooming in, you get to this doctrine called justification, and that is central.

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But if you start zooming out, you get into covenant theology, and if you keep zooming out, you get into eschatology, and you want your eschatology to be congruent or consistent with the gospel.

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So I actually would argue that all millennialism is the gospel zoomed out to all of the redemptive history, from start to finish, and not just my own personal salvation and my own personal redemption through Jesus Christ, but what is the application of the gospel to creation and the new world to come.

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I think all millennialism is most consistent with the gospel of all the other theological eschatological systems.

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Would you say maybe all millennialism is a misnomer and title? Because I've heard, especially growing up in the pre -millennial dispensational world, it's like they don't believe in a millennial reign, right?

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All negation of millennial. And so you start learning, no, no, no, it's just it's understood in a different paradigm, right?

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It's almost, I mean, it's just, it's totally different. And so this book that you wrote really seeks to bring clarity on that.

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Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. Labels are identifying a particular system and all millennialism got its label as they were comparing systems with one another.

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So once you have more than one system of thinking, you have to put a label to it. And so basically the reason that pre -mill, post -mill, all mill got all their names was based upon their understanding of Revelation 20 and the timing of the

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Lord's coming. Does Christ come before a literal thousand -year reign or does it come after a thousand -year reign?

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And all millennialism was in the middle. And so they had, like you said, a different understanding of what that millennial reign is or that kingdom is.

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And therefore, I don't know who was the person that first labeled this system, all millennialism.

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It'd be a good research project. But I think it came out of identifying pre, post, and so this,

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Hoover labeled it, said, hey, they don't believe in a literal, it's a denial of a literal thousand years.

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So we don't believe in a literal thousand years, but we do, like you said, hold that there is a kingdom that Christ rules and it's a real rule.

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And it does, in fact, it will one day include earthly things, physical things, the new heavens and the new earth.

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So it's not even saying it doesn't believe in literal, it's, it does believe in a literal reign of Christ, but that literal aspect of it is not yet, but it's yet to come.

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Yeah, well, it's something you said a second ago I really appreciate is we want a coherent, you know, overall theology, whether we zoom in and we see justification by faith alone, that that is the heart of the gospels, the heartbeat of how we have peace with God.

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And as we zoom out, we just see that gospel applied to all of creation. So it does get to our eschatology.

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And I was like, you know, I wonder what all we can talk about today with me and Dr. Jeffrey Johnson. I was like, oh,

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I think we have five points maybe that we can and touch on in your book. And so chapter one starts out with the redemptive historical hermeneutic.

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And what I really appreciate about this is says, yes, this presupposes the grammatical historical method of interpretation, but that has to be grounded.

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And maybe you didn't say it like this, but it has to be grounded in a worldview. And so I've heard some of your lectures talks about transcendentals.

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And so that necessarily assumes the, you know, how we have language and how we learn things over time that necessarily assumes the grammatical historical method.

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And that method is couched within an entire worldview framework, which I always push for must be the sovereign triune

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God. And the big push with this chapter is saying that we must interpret Old Testament scriptures with the

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New Testament scriptures. So what are some more thoughts you have on that? No, you pretty much summarized it really well.

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I mean, think of only having the Old Testament and say, I'm going to under, I want to understand the

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Old Testament in light of the Old Testament, and I don't want to bring the New Testament into my comprehension or understanding of any of the

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Old Testament passages. Think of what a disadvantage that would be if you didn't use the

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New Testament scriptures to help you interpret, understand the Old Testament. It's like watching half of a movie and not seeing the conclusion and going, yeah,

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I think I understand the first half, but then you finish the movie and you realize that there were some character developments and plot twist, and the end of the movie made little details or maybe even big details that happened at the beginning of the movie that you didn't see or notice or pay much attention to, or you misunderstood.

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And it brings everything together. And then once you see the conclusion, you're really able to go back and go, now

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I understand the beginning. I understand why this happened and what was needed, why this person did this and that.

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So we see the end by understanding the end and seeing the the

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New Testament, we have understanding to Old Testament texts that we wouldn't have had by simply just understanding the

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Old Testament in light of the Old Testament. There's so many examples of this in the

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New Testament. In fact, one third of the New Testament is interpretation of the

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Old Testament. So really the New Testament is the best, the best.

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In fact, it's an inspired commentary of the Old Testament. And so why would we not want to look at God's commentary of the

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Old Testament? And there's so many things that the New Testament teaches us about the Old Testament that, like, my son shall be called out of Egypt.

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Israel came out of Egypt, but that's like, oh, this is talking about Jesus. You can look at a that's talking about King David or that's

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David. Well, Jesus applies it to himself. It's like, wow, I wouldn't have without the

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New Testament help, I would not have come to that conclusion that the

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New Testament authors came to. A really good example, like with Psalm 22, right?

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's like, that sounds familiar. And for the Christian, we see the fulfillment of Psalm 22 with Jesus' suffering, dying, being crucified on a

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Roman cross, right? Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, hands and feet being pierced. Well, we see the beauty in that, that that is our

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Lord and our Savior dying on our behalf, right? And so that's what

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I try to get the ball rolling with because, Dr. Jeffrey, notice this is actually a difference in hermeneutics with maybe the dispensational premillennialist, and we'll just go with all millennialism right now, is it's a difference in hermeneutic.

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I've heard it said from kind of the dispensational crowd is, if we say we have to interpret the

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Old Testament in light of the New, then this is the conclusion that they make, then the Old Testament was written in riddles and can't be understood, and Scripture is no longer perspicuous.

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So what would you say to something like that? Yeah, I think it's, it would be one thing if we didn't believe in divine inspiration.

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It's like, I need to understand Jeremiah in light of the intended audience, in light of the context of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah is writing, and that's how we do all other literature.

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If all of the literature, you can't take a book written 2 ,000 years after another book and go,

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I'm going to understand Plato by understanding, you know, something Frederick Nietzsche wrote. Like, well, maybe

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Frederick Nietzsche talks about Plato a little bit, and I can glean from Nietzsche about Plato, but Plato did not have

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Nietzsche or any of the contemporary problems in mind when Plato wrote his books.

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So I can understand if there wasn't a divine author, but if we do believe in a divine author, that there's a single mind behind Jeremiah, Matthew, Mark, and Revelation, if there's a single mind, then we have as a basic presupposition when we open up the

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Bible, is that there's coherency between the Genesis and Revelation, that there's no contradictions, that there's one author, and there is a single plot line, there's a single story, and because we believe in divine inspiration and a single ultimate author behind all the diversity of human authorships, then we can take this presupposition and go that the end of the story naturally is going to be beneficial in understanding the intended meaning of the original, the beginning of the story.

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And so I think even the Old Testament authors, according to Peter, knew that they weren't necessarily serving themselves, that they were serving another generation, and Peter's like serving us.

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So I think even these Old Testament authors were writing in such a way that they knew that we

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New Testament Christians, or the later generations, would have a better grasp.

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And this is why I think Jesus said about John the Baptist, there was none greater than all the

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Old Testament prophets, and he's not greater because he's stronger, he's not greater because he's more intelligent, he's not greater for any other reason other than he has more light.

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He introduced the person of Jesus Christ, and he's the last of the

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Old Testament prophets, and every single New Testament Christian is greater than John the

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Baptist. And we're not greater because we prophesy, we're not greater because we're stronger, we're greater in the sense that we have more revelation.

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We have clear vision of the story of redemption that even John the Baptist had, and that's because we have the final word in the

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New Testament. And so I think it's pretty naive to go, I'm not going to look at the

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Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament. I think that we would be undercutting our best commentary and our best understanding of the

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Old Testament by neglecting the New Testament.

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Well what a fantastic first point of trying to understand the whole paradigm of all millennialism, because it has to do with hermeneutics, right?

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This is something that I think the post -millennial crowd would kind of yes and amen the all -millennial crowd of saying

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New Testament scriptures have to help interpret the Old Testament scriptures because it's a unified whole.

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And so we touched on this a little bit, but the second point in your book, the second chapter, believers are the children of Abraham.

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Now this to me is so like almost groundbreaking, and it's okay. We can talk about how we are

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Reformed Baptists when it comes to especially understanding covenant theology, maybe 1689 federalism.

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This is something that I'm new to, and I just want to tell you, Dr. Jeffrey, there is a simplicity and beauty to what

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I'm reading about understanding how God has always been in covenant with his people. And so yeah, speak to the second chapter, believers are the children of Abraham.

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Why is this important to all millennialism? Yeah, I mean, it's going back to what I've said about rooting our theology in the gospel.

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The gospel is by faith and faith alone. It's not by genetics or works or circumcision that gets you into the kingdom.

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You have to be born again. Jesus told Nicodemus, you know, to see the kingdom of God. It doesn't come with observation.

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You don't come through physical sight. You have to be born again to see it.

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And only by the new birth are you, you enter into the membership and the covenant community,

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I would say, of the kingdom of God. So if you understand that the gospel is for believers and believers alone, not by works, not by circumcision, not by any other method, you say, well,

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I believe that about the gospel. What do you believe that about the kingdom? And I think the New Testament makes it clear.

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Then who are the true children of Abraham? Well, we learn in Galatians and Romans that not all of Israel is of true

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Israel, that to be a true child of Abraham and how Abraham is the father of us all.

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He's not just the father of Jews. He's the father of believers. And how is he the father of believers?

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Well, we learn in Romans 4 that Abraham was justified before he was circumcised.

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So his justification had nothing to do with circumcision. It was based upon faith. He believed

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God and it was accredited to him as righteousness. And this in order, Paul says, so that he might be the father of us all.

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So he is our father because he's the father of believers. Well, how do we become the children of Abraham, our joint heirs with Abraham?

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Well, you've got to understand God promised Abraham all this inheritance and he died without receiving a single ounce of it.

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We learn that in Romans that he died waiting and looking. He saw Christ, but never received any of the inheritance.

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He was a sojourner. He was a pilgrim. He wandered his whole life and died without receiving it.

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But he believed he would receive it, which speaks of the resurrection. Dr. Jeffrey, Abraham will receive that promise in a future literal thousand -year reign though.

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I believe it doesn't end after a thousand years. It's eternal. It's an everlasting inheritance.

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And so it's not just a temporal time. It's like he's going to receive it all.

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And I think Abraham, he received the world, everything. God says, I'm giving you everything. And he looked and he knew by faith, he knew he wasn't looking for an earthly kingdom.

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He was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. He wasn't looking for a cursed land that's full of sinners.

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He was looking for something glorious and he didn't receive it. But here comes the man, Jesus, the seed of Abraham.

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And in your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. In your seed, and Paul makes it clear, it wasn't plural, like all the seeds, but in one single seed is going to be the heir of Abraham.

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He is the child of Abraham. Well, how do we become that children of Abraham?

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If we are united to Jesus Christ by faith, not through genetics or law keeping or any other method, by faith alone, we become one with Jesus Christ.

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And if he's the sole heir of Abraham, then we become joint heirs with Christ.

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We become, along with Jesus Christ, we become the true children of Abraham.

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So here's the key point. I don't believe that believers replace physical Israel any more than Ishmael replaced

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Isaac. It's not that we replace Israel.

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We are the true Israel of God, according to Romans 11. We are the intended recipients of the promise.

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That was always the promise that in the seed, the singular seed, Jesus Christ, all the nations through faith, not works, would be blessed.

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And that was the promise. And therefore, if we understand that the true children of Abraham are not circumcision or those who are circumcised, it's not those who keep the law, but those who believe, then that changes everything about how we understand eschatology.

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Yeah, because this is the big, it's another huge distinction with like dispensational premillennialism, with what we're contending for with all millennialism, is these promises of a land, a people, and a king.

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Because I lived in this eight years. It's like, it's Israel. It's Israel. And what that really meant was it's the physical people of Israel.

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And so you're kind of pushing back and saying, well, wait, these promises were meant for the spiritual offspring who are the true

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Israel, not the physical descendants who are essentially covenant breakers. Is that a good way of looking at it? Yeah.

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Yeah. I mean, it's like, I'm saying the promises are more glorious and more spectacular than we could have ever imagined.

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It's like, I promised my son, I'm going to get you a car. And he's looking at my old 1993

33:43

Camry at 200 ,000 miles on it with dents and scratches all over it. And he's like, okay, that's what

33:50

I'm going to get. You know, and in the back of my mind, I'm like, I got a Lamborghini prepared for you, buddy. You know?

33:56

And so here, you know, this, hey, you got this, the

34:01

Israelites are full of, full of problems. They got sin in their lives.

34:08

Most of them are unbelievers. You got this world that's broken and full of sin and full of evil.

34:15

And it's like, hey, I'm going to give you this, I'm going to give you this cursed land with all the thistles and thorns.

34:21

And I mean, go look at Israel, go look at the land, Palestine, go look at it.

34:26

It's, I mean, is that the inheritance? You're going to get a bunch of sand? You know, is that what you really, is that what we want?

34:35

It's like, I want, I want a thousand years of some prosperity and some big grapes and bumper crops, and maybe a

34:43

Lord will send rain. And that's what I'm looking for. That, that's glory. Or do we want something way more glorious than that?

34:51

That's everlasting. It's eternal. That's, you know, that has no end. That's what

34:57

I think, well, that's what I believe, that God promised Abraham. And, and unless Abraham's going to be resurrected and, you know, and, and, and die a second death, which is impossible, he's, he, well,

35:12

Abraham's going to receive it. He didn't receive it in this life, but he is going to receive it at the resurrection. And what he receives is the new heavens and the new earth.

35:22

It's going to be a physical, tangible, touchable earth. He's going to, eternal.

35:29

It doesn't expire after a thousand years. So before we like transition to some more of the points, and a lot of these overlap, but really this delves deep into covenant theology, because like I said,

35:40

I've been reading your other book, The Kingdom of God, and listened to your lectures on covenant theology. You know,

35:45

Genesis chapter 17 kind of bears out the, that covenant, the, the agreement between God and Abraham and the offspring.

35:54

And, and you're saying you got to pay careful attention to the details, because this is an everlasting possession.

36:01

And I think when I was thinking more dispensationally, I missed that detail, right?

36:06

Because everything that I was looking about the promises to Abraham, I was thinking temporal, which that's, that's the need for a future literal thousand years.

36:14

That's not eternal, right? It's, it's temporal for a thousand years and then the eternal state. And so I think when we, when we back up and say, who are the, the, the true children of Abraham, what

36:27

Reformed Baptist covenant theology is contending for is it's always believers, right? Those that have been united together to Christ by faith, that's who receives the promise.

36:37

That's who it's always been intended for. Is that fair? That's exactly right. That's the, that was the original intent.

36:45

I mean, you, you can take the New Testament and say, hey, this is how the New Testament interprets these Old Testament passages, these covenant,

36:53

Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant. This is the interpretation of those covenants from the

36:59

New Testament perspective. But then once you see that, you can go look and look at the Old Testament and say, well, this is saying the same thing the

37:05

Old Testament is saying. It's not like you have to re, you don't, the Old Testament tells us that the nations were intended to be blessed from the beginning, that the

37:17

Gentiles would be incorporated into the true olive tree. Now it doesn't mean that Jews are not part of it.

37:26

Yes, they're a part of it. Yes, Jews are believers. Paul says, hey, look at me,

37:31

I'm a Jew. So it, they, they had the gospel prior to the Gentiles getting the gospel.

37:37

I mean, just a remnant, not all of them, but some of them did believe that gospel and they were the true children of Abraham in the

37:44

Old Testament. And then now that gospel comes through to the Gentiles and we get blessed and brought into that, those covenant promises and blessings.

37:56

So, like I said, these next few points overlap and I have some more good questions. So major point number one, the five points of all millennialism was the redemptive historical hermeneutic, right?

38:08

Hermeneutics matter how we interpret scripture. And the big point is the New Testament is the best commentary of the

38:15

Old Testament. So we're thinking holistically, we're looking at the whole counsel of God. We take

38:20

Jesus with us when we go study the Old Testament scriptures as Christians. And so the second point that we've got, we've just touched on a little bit, but we'll kind of keep bringing these principles out.

38:30

But number two, believers are the children of Abraham. This is the spiritual offspring, not the physical.

38:36

And so point number three that you cover, and this was the one that I, when I read it, Dr. Jeffrey, I was like, my goodness,

38:43

I've never thought about it like this, but it's the church is the Davidic kingdom. So can you touch on that a little bit for us?

38:51

Yeah, I love this point. And this is the funnest chapter for me to write because I go back and look at the

38:57

Davidic promise, the covenant that God promised David that David wanted to build a house for God.

39:08

And that was commendable. He built himself a palace. And so, hey, I'm dwelling in this wonderful palace as a

39:15

King. Here's my God dwelling in a tent. So he had it in his heart to build a temple, a house.

39:22

And God told him, Hey, thanks, but no thanks. You can't do it. You're a man of blood.

39:28

However, you're not going to build me a house. I'm going to build your house.

39:35

It's awesome. It's like, David, you can't really give me anything. Honestly, I don't dwell in temples made by man's hands.

39:44

He, you know, we learned that in Acts 17. So you really can't really give me anything. I don't, I mean, a tent, a house, whatever.

39:51

I don't, that's not where I dwell anyway. I dwell in heavens and the heavens of heavens can't contain me. So, but I can give you something.

39:58

So he reverses the David covenant. It's like, it's not so much what we give God or what David can give God. It's like,

40:04

I'm going to give you something and I'm going to give you something through your son. Now we think, well,

40:09

Solomon built the temple. That's true. It was a type of the true temple, but not the temple that he promised

40:16

David. And he says, your son, and we know that his son ultimately was talking about the ultimate son,

40:23

Jesus Christ. Your son is going to build you a house. Now, what is this house?

40:30

Well, it's not a house made out of stones, physical stones. Again, it's not that old Camry in my driveway.

40:37

It's something way more glorious. It's stones made out, it's living stones, as Peter says.

40:42

We're the temple of the living God. And so what is the temple? The temple is so much more glorious than a physical structure.

40:54

It's the church, which is the temple of the living God. And what are the churches?

41:01

Believers. And who builds the church? Who's constructing this temple? The very house of God.

41:07

And where does God dwell? Remember when a Samaritan woman wanted to ask

41:13

Jesus, now that I know you're a prophet, I got this question for you. Where do we worship?

41:18

We say it's here, Mount Gerizim. The Jews say it's Jerusalem. Settle this debate for me.

41:25

And she goes, he says, woman, the hour is and now will be that those who worship me must worship me in truth.

41:33

It's not in a physical location. It's not like Jerusalem is going to be the place where God dwells or a physical temple where God dwells.

41:43

God has sent his spirit and Jesus said, don't cling to me to marry. Don't cling to me.

41:50

It's better that I leave you. If Jesus physically stayed here for the duration between the first and second coming, we'd all would move to where he lived and we'd all go to his church.

42:01

I know I would. I would want to physically relocate myself to the place Jesus lived and we would all cling to him.

42:10

But Jesus says, hey, it's better that I leave and that I will come back to you. I won't leave you as orphans.

42:16

My spirit, the Holy Spirit, my spirit will come and dwell in you.

42:23

You'll be my temple. That's amazing. Right. And one one emphasis is that this temple is eternal.

42:33

Right. This this dwelling place is eternal with believers. And so what are your thoughts? Because earlier you said, you know, we're starting to dip into a departure and covenant theology with kind of the

42:45

Reformed Baptist paradigm and Presbyterians. And so if we are understanding, you know, in the

42:52

Old Testament, these are historical covenants. Right. That God made with Adam, that he made with Noah, Abraham, David.

43:01

If we understand that these are different covenants. Right. And the new covenant is so much more glorious.

43:07

That's being promised for. And they lived under different covenants. Now, I've thought about this.

43:14

I mean, please help me because I could be way wrong. And I'm sure I'll get some interesting feedback for this. But it seems like the

43:20

Presbyterian theology that sees, you know, the Old Testament saints under the covenant of grace. Well, they've been given a kingdom back then with temporal tools, temporal ways to wage war.

43:33

And they've been given temporal laws. Right. To theocratic Israel, that we see a lot of that carrying over into kind of a theonomic paradigm within a what

43:45

I would argue for a more consistent Presbyterian covenant theology, which might work better with post -millennialism with a theonomic framework.

43:54

So is there any consistency with Presbyterians and post -millennialism and theonomy?

44:00

What do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're exactly right. That's why I want my, like I said at the beginning,

44:06

I want my eschatology and all my theology to be consistent with the gospel. If the gospel is for salvation, it's by faith and faith alone.

44:16

You have to be born again. And in the Old Testament economy, you didn't have to be born again to be a part of the

44:21

Old Testament people. It was just by natural birth. Kind of like for me to be an American, I just need to be born here.

44:27

Now, there's other ways to become an American. I could go through the citizenship process. There's other ways to become a

44:33

Jew in the Old Testament. You could go through some form of circumcision and citizenship process.

44:39

And that's what, you know, the Judaizers wanted Christians to do. You got to go through the citizenship process.

44:44

You have to be circumcised. Paul says, no, no. Circumcision is of no avail. It's by faith and faith alone.

44:51

But the Old Testament was a theocracy. And this is why when Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard it say, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

44:58

You have to have a theocracy. If you're mixing earthly, civil, political rule with Christianity, then you have to have eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

45:12

But Jesus says, there's no longer eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but now we turn the other cheek. Because my kingdom, the kingdom of God, up until the return of Jesus Christ, is not of this world.

45:24

It's not physical. It's not based upon genetics.

45:30

And so Presbyterians and Dispensational, they make the same basic flaw.

45:37

They add a non -regenerate membership into God's covenant people.

45:43

And the nature of the new covenant, which was promised in Ezekiel, I will make a new covenant not like these old covenants.

45:50

The old covenant they broke, the old covenant they failed. And the reason that these covenants were faulty is because it demanded obedience, and these covenant people could not obey.

46:03

But I'll make a new one, and they all shall know me from the least to greatest.

46:10

So every new covenant member is a believer, and been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, and been born again.

46:19

And that's a huge, huge distinction that makes Baptist covenant theology different than Presbyterian covenant theology.

46:26

It's not a mixed covenant, right? It's a covenant of grace, the new covenant whose mediator cannot fail to intercede and save his, right?

46:36

Fully forgiven, past, present, future. So here's a question that maybe sounds a little dicey.

46:43

But for those Reformed Baptist covenant theologians that are trying to press for a post -millennial framework, can you put your finger on the inconsistency maybe with trying to rectify those two things?

46:57

Yeah, I mean, again, it's a blending of the theocracy of the

47:03

Old Testament with the spiritual kingdom, the nature of the kingdom of the new covenant.

47:09

It's blending those together, and I think you're going to have all kinds of inconsistencies and things that just, like oil and water don't mix.

47:23

A mixed covenant membership of believers and unbelievers do not mix. The kingdom of God is not advanced through making moral citizens of unbelievers who go to hell.

47:35

You're either in the kingdom of God or you're in the kingdom of Satan. There's not this kingdom of God that's a mixture of the kingdom of Satan and kingdom of God.

47:45

It's one or the other. It's light or darkness. Light has no fellowship with darkness.

47:52

It's this great antithesis. And so what Christ is doing is he is calling out a particular people for himself, redeeming them out of the kingdom of darkness, out of this fallen world, this cursed world, and he's preparing them for a non -cursed, glorified world with a glorified body, with perfection.

48:15

And that's the true kingdom. And we're not yet fully—we'll get to this in a minute—but we're not fully seeing the kingdom realized.

48:24

The kingdom is not going to be completed until Christ comes back, and then it's eternal, and it's sinless, and it's eternal sinless, and it's completely without any wickedness at all.

48:38

But we see the beginning of that kingdom. We see the first fruits of that kingdom by the coming of the

48:44

Holy Spirit, and by the fruits of the Spirit, and by all the fruits of the new birth.

48:50

And so without new birth, you don't have any of the kingdom of God. Genetics, and law -keeping, and circumcision, and legislation, and political protest, marches, and rallies, and all that have maybe have common grace.

49:09

And I'm for it, as an American citizen, to have common grace. And I'm for Christianity having a wonderful impact upon my society.

49:17

I'm for clean water, planting some good trees, and feeding the poor. All that, may we do that along the way, but let's not confuse feeding the poor and a better moral society, which we all long for, and we should seek for, and pray for, and we should vote, and we should do what we can.

49:40

And our Christianity is going to help us, guide us, in how we try to bring common grace and the good of society around us.

49:47

But don't mix the advancement, or at least the restraining of evil. And that's all it is.

49:53

It's not a conversion of evil to good. It's just a restraining of evil. Let's not confuse the restraining of evil with the new birth, or restraining of evil with regeneration, and sanctification, and the kingdom of God.

50:07

These are totally different spheres and different things. Now, I've gone to preach.

50:13

No, I'm a fellow preacher. I'm not preaching. I can hear my post -millennial friends, though, saying,

50:19

Jeremiah, all authority has been given to me on heaven and earth, right, is what the words of Jesus said.

50:26

And then, obviously, he's going to reign until, Dr. Jeffrey, maybe you've not read

50:32

Psalm 110, verse 1, that my post -millennial friends will say, is saying that we should be able to go out with marching orders, knowing that we are going to prevail in our declaring of the law and the gospel.

50:48

And so, obviously, we would affirm that we can go out in victory, but we have different understandings, right?

50:54

And I would like for you to speak to what victory looks like in this fallen world, and how

50:59

Christ is going to ultimately restore all things. So, maybe before you jump into that, maybe this relates to chapter number four, point number four, that says, the new earth is the promised land.

51:13

Yeah. Well, you flipped me from all malism to post -mill about all that. I don't mean to be facetious.

51:24

Yeah, Christ has all power in heaven and earth. He's not waiting to get all power.

51:32

He's not waiting to the return of Christ, for he's been given all power. He rules over all the kingdoms of this world.

51:39

He rules over the president of the United States and the president of Russia and every other political leader.

51:47

He rules, he reigns, and every leader should bow down before him and submit themselves to him.

51:54

Absolutely. But Christ rules not simply in bringing the gospel and redeeming sinners to himself through the preaching of the gospel and bringing them into the church.

52:08

He rules by judging. And 1

52:13

Corinthians 15 says he is ruling. He is reigning. He's reigning over the whole creation, heaven and earth.

52:19

He reigns. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to the single man, Jesus Christ. But he rules over the wicked by bringing condemnation and judgment.

52:29

So, it's not like we're having to look for the world to get better and better, even the world getting worse and worse, or from judgment to judgment.

52:37

Romans 1 and 2 is implication that Christ is ruling over this world. He's giving them over to reprobate mine.

52:45

He's bringing them into a greater condemnation. Again, the purpose of Christ's rule is not to make this earthly world a moral society so that eventually he can throw everybody into hell.

52:58

That's not the kingdom of God. He's bringing judgment upon Satan. He did bring judgment on Satan.

53:04

He's bringing judgment upon this world and he's ruling over it and he's bringing death and destruction through judgment, righteous judgment upon this world.

53:14

Ultimately, he's going to judge it in the last day. But in this judgment over the wicked, he is graciously pulling out his people and ruling in their hearts in a particular way through his people submitting to Christ.

53:35

There's a white horse and a black horse. First Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter, but there's some wonderful promises of our blessed hope here.

53:47

And so, it's starting in verse 24. Paul says, Then comes the end. Maybe we can all agree this is the eschaton at his coming, the great parrhesia.

53:55

Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority in power.

54:04

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

54:10

So, what's interesting, and help me out here, so the postmillennial paradigm is an expansion of the kingdom in terms of the world, the globe being

54:20

Christianized, right? So, it's not just merely spiritual, but we're going to see the physicality of it expanding, right?

54:31

Nations being, I don't want to say just reconstructed, but just becoming Christianized, having a law that we find maybe embedded in moral principles of the

54:40

Old Testament. And so, a lot of their argument, they will go to Psalm 110 verse 1 that just says,

54:49

He must reign until he has put all of his enemies under their feet. So, I think the postmillennial theonomic paradigm is saying until.

54:58

So, they're interpreting this to be expansion. And so, does the all -millennial crowd say we're looking at what that rule looks like differently?

55:08

Sure, until he returns. But you're actually saying this rule is one of judgment, not necessarily in terms of the wheat are going to grow a lot more past the tares or something like that.

55:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I think both postmill and all -mill, and I hope everybody else would say the majority of the human race are not regenerate in the last day when it comes to the day of judgment.

55:34

Now, there might be a postmill thing, well, okay, there's going to be maybe more people. But it seems to me that Scripture makes it clear that narrow is the way, you find it, there's a remnant according to election.

55:47

And so, the goal, you know, again, what is the goal of the kingdom?

55:53

The goal of the kingdom is not making, it's not making the world a moral place so that God can send them the moral, the better moral people to hell.

56:13

The goal of the kingdom is for Christ to rule and to reign over all things.

56:19

And he is ruling over all things. But there is two types of rule.

56:29

There's that rule over bringing his enemies into subjection and breaking their necks.

56:35

And then there's the rule of bringing in his enemies into submission, willful submission.

56:41

Now, how do you get someone to have willful submission? It's only through regeneration. Now, I have bowed the knee to the

56:48

Lord Jesus Christ, and I delight in serving him, and I love the

56:53

Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever he says to me, I want to obey from a willing heart. But how did that happen?

57:01

Not through circumcision or genetics. It happened through the gospel. It happened through faith. And now

57:07

I'm a willful submitted servant. Now, for people who have moral decency, and they've been

57:17

Christianized, but they're not saved. And so, they have some Christian values, and they live a little better life than Muslims or live a little better life than just rank heathens and professing atheists, and they're living better lives.

57:30

We prefer that. I prefer that. I would rather be surrounded by good neighbors than evil neighbors.

57:36

And I do think Christianity does raise the level of morality wherever it prospers.

57:42

We want that. But even that's not submission to Christ. They haven't bowed the knee to the

57:50

Lordship of Jesus Christ. They're just— The best the law can do to the unbeliever is restrain their simple heart.

58:04

I prefer restraining grace, and I think we should pursue restraining grace upon our world, vote right, be politically active in the ways that we can.

58:17

I'm not like a retreatist, the kingdom of God is spiritual and have nothing to do with our nations.

58:22

I am concerned as an American for America and whatever I can do with the powers that I have, influences that I have.

58:31

I want to use that for the good of my neighbors, for my society, for America as a whole.

58:37

So, I'm not a retreatist. I do believe that we need to be politically active. But in my political activism,

58:43

I'm not confusing that with my gospel presentation. I'm not confusing feeding the poor and voting and restraining grace as saving grace.

58:55

Do you think when Jesus talks about how we're called to be salt and light, that this saltiness is a preservative, right?

59:02

Preserving the inevitable stench and decay. So, it's kind of that restraining mindset.

59:08

Is that fair place to point to people of saying, even the words of Jesus was saying, to be salt is not a flavor enhancer, but more of that preservative.

59:20

Well, I think we are. I think if it wasn't for the church, God would have already come back.

59:26

If it wasn't that he didn't have a people, the world had already been destroyed.

59:32

There would be no reason to maintain this evil world that we live in.

59:39

If it wasn't that God's still calling out a people for himself. And it's like Sodom and Gomorrah, God would have not have judged it if he had found ten.

59:49

Ten. It's a small number. Ten righteous among them. That ten people could have been salt that preserved

59:56

Sodom and Gomorrah, but there wasn't enough salt for him to preserve it.

01:00:02

And I think the Lord's going to come back when there's just not enough salt to preserve it any longer. And once he's redeemed his people, and there's no more to redeem, then the end comes.

01:00:15

When you talk about the last things, right, at the great Parisia, the return, that was kind of your fifth point of all millennialism, the finality of the second coming.

01:00:27

Now, a big takeaway that's different, I would say to some degree, maybe it's just some semantics, but when

01:00:33

I was pre -millennial dispensational, I didn't really have this mindset of inauguration and consummation, right?

01:00:39

I didn't really have a fully developed two kingdoms or two age mentality developed.

01:00:44

And so in your book, there is a really good graphic of saying there's overlapping ages, right? This age, which is kind of this temporal age.

01:00:52

I've read a really good book by Kim Riddlebarger, just talking about a case for all millennialism. Great great portion of just saying, look, there's an overlap.

01:01:02

And so this age, this temporal age was interrupted with the eternal age at the first coming of Jesus.

01:01:09

So you spent a lot of time talking about that. And so we're living in this temporal age and eternal age that's not fully realized, but it will be at the end of this temporal age.

01:01:20

And that is the consummation of Jesus Christ at his second coming. So did I get that right of kind of how you address some of those things in that final chapter?

01:01:27

Yeah, that's really good explanation and summary. That the kingdom of God, we've tasted it.

01:01:33

It's eternal. And we've tasted it. It's been introduced. The first fruits have been given to us in the spirit.

01:01:39

And it's not, it doesn't come with observation in this age. It's not like we can look at a particular location and say, here, here's the army.

01:01:47

It's not like Christ has to be physically present on the earth and say, look, there he is. Here's the boundaries and the borders of the kingdom.

01:01:55

And the boundaries are going to keep expanding and expanding into all the nations are in its subjection.

01:02:01

No, the kingdom is invisible, but it's more glorious that it's invisible because that which is visible can be shaken and destroyed.

01:02:09

That which is invisible cannot be shaken or destroyed, according to the author of Hebrews. And so he's building an eternal kingdom.

01:02:17

And we see the beginning of that in regeneration and basically with the giving of the

01:02:26

Holy Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit. Hebrews 6 says, if you've tasted the age to come or the hour to come, you know, we've tasted that it's come, but it's not fully consummated or fully realized because we're still waiting for glorification.

01:02:43

We're still living in this fallen world. And so he's building God, Christ is building this kingdom, but it's coming in full at his return.

01:02:52

And that's when he's going to have all his enemies destroyed, everything brought into subjection.

01:02:59

And then there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth that lasts forever. That's going to be populated with only believers and righteous people.

01:03:08

And we're all going to be in perfect harmony with one another, perfect harmony and submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.

01:03:14

Christ is going to say, here, Christ, that kingdom that you established in the

01:03:19

Garden of Eden that was destroyed by Satan and sin and evil, I have come and redeemed, and I'm presenting it back to you complete and perfect, and it will never end.

01:03:30

And that is the great hope that Christ is going to restore all things back to God the

01:03:37

Father. Yeah, I love that because when we're talking about this new heavens and new earth and the kingdom of God, there is a sense where we're looking above, right, where God dwells.

01:03:47

The king dwells on his throne. That's where the kingdom's at. And that kingdom is shining in the hearts of believers, like you've been saying, in the ecclesiae of the church.

01:03:56

And so we do have marching orders to continue to equip the saints for the good work, to go out into the world, share the gospel, and to be that preservative, right, that restraining grace on the world until the king returns.

01:04:11

And so in your book, I think you kind of say, like, that finality is a singular event.

01:04:17

And this is another big distinction with, like, premillennialism, whether it's, you know, dispensational or historic, as we're saying, the rapture being transferred from immortality and immortality at the resurrection.

01:04:32

All this is going to happen at Jesus' second coming, where he's going to judge the and the dead.

01:04:38

So we're looking forward to that great end. Yeah, I mean, if you just take 1 Corinthians 15 and 2

01:04:45

Peter chapter 3, there are some, you know, passages that's hard to understand.

01:04:50

Matthew 24 can be difficult, and the book of Revelation can be difficult, and so there's some places that it's like, oh, okay, these are—it takes some time and study.

01:05:01

But there's other passages that are very clear, very direct, very—if you want to use the word look.

01:05:11

Was it in your book that you just said, you know, we interpret the more clear passages in light of the unclear, and one good rule that you use to say, let's go to 2

01:05:20

Peter chapter 3. This is didactic. This is giving us just good hermeneutics, right, a good understanding of what the new heavens and new earth is going to look like, and let's take that understanding with us into the book of Revelation.

01:05:33

Right, right. Exactly. Why would you—everybody would agree Revelation can be difficult, and everybody would hopefully agree that 1

01:05:41

Peter is not that difficult. So why would we take the passages that are hard to understand and make it a priority over the passages that are easy to understand?

01:05:57

And so I think we take that which is clear and easy and say, this is what we do know. I think we should all do that when we get to a passage like,

01:06:05

I don't know what this means. Okay, well, what does it not say? I know it doesn't say this because I know when

01:06:11

James talks about justification by works, I know what he doesn't mean by that. How do I know what he doesn't mean?

01:06:17

Because I know what Paul says in Romans is clear, very clear. Over and over it says that we're not justified by works of the law.

01:06:26

So we take the clear passages and help us interpret the more troubling or hard passages.

01:06:34

And Peter couldn't be any more clear than he was about the coming of Jesus Christ and what's going to happen when

01:06:42

Jesus comes. And it's clear that when he comes, this world is destroyed.

01:06:48

It's like he comes, the world, this current present age and this world that we live in, the heavens, the stars, the trees, the mountains are going to be burnt up with fire.

01:07:03

So when he comes, the world is destroyed. And there's no thousand years after that, there's not a rapture, then another coming.

01:07:12

And it's like, no, it's pretty clear that, hey, this what we do know, that Christ is physically coming back, the world's going to be destroyed, and then there's going to be a judgment and the eternal realm.

01:07:24

Yeah, that's our blessed hope. And something that I found really attractive that makes so much sense—I see its beauty in kind of the all -millennial framework—is this two -age model, temporal age, eternal age.

01:07:39

And so what I want to caution my post -millennialist friends out there is because what

01:07:45

I've been hearing a lot lately is this age is really just the Jewish age.

01:07:51

And I always throw up the red flag and say, you have to be so careful with that, because then the next move is, okay, how do you understand the

01:07:58

Olivet Discourse? Because at the end of the Jewish aeon at 70 AD, there you have the parrhesia.

01:08:05

And so that lends itself into this full -preterism, hyper -preterist mindset of everything being fulfilled back in 70

01:08:11

AD. And a lot of it touches on how you understand this age and the age to come. And all -millennialism just says, look, this age is the temporal age.

01:08:21

Jesus defined that throughout the Gospels. The Apostle Paul, especially in 1 Corinthians, talks about how in this age you have the

01:08:28

Judaizers that rejected Christ and His coming. You have the

01:08:33

Greek philosophers that seek knowledge. All these things are perishing, and not just the teachers, but this world.

01:08:40

And so Paul is very emphatic that this is the evil age, right? But it'll be met with a final consummation of all things when

01:08:48

Jesus, and then like you were saying in 2 Peter 3, restores all things. It creates a new heaven and a new earth.

01:08:54

So 2 Peter 3 cannot be referring to just the doing away with of Judaism at 70

01:09:03

AD. Now that's true, that did happen, but underneath the foundation of this temporal age, that will one day be fully realized in the future.

01:09:12

Right, that's exactly right. Yes, the thought that the flood was with real water, and the destruction of this world is real fire seems to be pretty evident and very clear in 2

01:09:38

Peter 3. Clearly Peter is quoting from Isaiah 65 when he says,

01:09:46

This is the same language back in Genesis, and if we believe

01:09:52

Genesis is a historic account the way that the New Testament writers interpreted it, then that gives us all the contextual clues of how we are to understand what

01:10:01

Peter's talking about. All of this will be transformed. Right, that's amazing.

01:10:06

It's glorious. It's really glorious. It's a Lamborghini. It's better, yeah.

01:10:12

It's better than a Lamborghini. Yeah, and it's still physical.

01:10:18

That's the thing. Abraham's going to walk on this earth again, and he's going to own it.

01:10:29

We're joint heirs with him. We're going to own it too. We're going to have a body.

01:10:35

So it's like, hey, all of this doesn't believe in physical realities. We do believe in physical realities. They're eternal.

01:10:42

That's the key. It's not necessarily an opposition between physical and spiritual as it is temporal and eternal, and the inheritance we receive is everlasting, and it can't be taken away from us.

01:10:59

Dr. Jeffrey, thank you so much for just sharing all this wisdom. I've really enjoyed this book, and like you said, it's a pretty condensed book where it kind of gives just the main principles and takeaways and how all millennialism is not just an isolated eschatology, but it's deeply rooted in the gospel itself, and it's deeply rooted in covenants, how

01:11:21

God has always dealt with his people, and so I just want to encourage the audience. Go check out

01:11:27

The Five Points of All Millennialism. Hopefully, I can have Dr. Jeffrey Johnson back, and maybe we can talk about your other book,

01:11:34

The Kingdom of God. Honestly, I've been reading that one first, and that has helped me so much on this book,

01:11:40

The Five Points of All Millennialism. Yeah. Yeah, they go together. Go together. Well, Dr.

01:11:45

Jeffrey, thank you again. I don't want to take much more of your time. I just want to give you a chance if you have any final words that you would like to leave with people.

01:11:54

Yeah, if you're interested in the book, you can go to freegracepress .com, and if you've never bought anything from our publishing company, there's a 15 %—if you sign up for our newsletter, you get 15 % off.

01:12:07

The books are already, I think, under $10, and so it'd be really pretty inexpensive.

01:12:16

Freegracepress .com. I'll be sure to include that in the show notes, and before we part ways, me and you have a couple of mutual friends.

01:12:23

I don't know if you knew, but Creston Thomas and I are really close, and he's been talking about trying to set up a debate with me and you against two other people that oppose the common grace of God.

01:12:37

I don't know if he's talked to you much about that. Yeah, I've heard about that. Sure have. Yeah, that'd be interesting.

01:12:43

I like a showdown in the octagons that can go down, so maybe me and you can join forces, and that'd be a blast.

01:12:51

Yeah, it'd be like Elon Musk and Zuckerberg going off. That is awesome.

01:12:58

Well, thanks so much, Dr. Jeffrey. Hopefully, I'll have you again sometime, and you have to come down to Jonesboro before too long and preach at 12 .5.

01:13:07

I would love to do that. All right. Well, God bless. Thank you again so much. Yeah, thank you. All right, bye -bye.

01:13:12

So, thank you all so much for tuning in to The Apologetic Dog. It was an absolute honor to be able to get to talk with Jeffrey Johnson again,

01:13:19

Dr. Jeffrey. I got to meet him at G3, and we got some other things in the works. Maybe we'll get to do a debate maybe in a year's time, me and him standing firmly contending for God's common grace on a world that spits at God, right?

01:13:34

This world is dark and evil, suppresses the truth and righteousness, and God is even gracious and merciful to a world that hates him.

01:13:42

So, be on the lookout for that. That's something that's in the works, and I'd love to have Dr. Jeffrey again to talk with him about other books that he's written.

01:13:51

The man's ministry has been such a blessing to me, and so I just want to go encourage you. I should be able to put some links to some more of his material below.

01:13:59

So, if you've not already subscribed and liked The Apologetic Dog, please do so. If you've liked this video, please like and share.

01:14:07

That really helps the algorithm to better just circulate the ministry where other people can be familiar with this content, and above all, be able to honestly understand the gospel of grace, that they may know

01:14:20

God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. That is eternal life, and so again, thank you so much.