Peter Goeman on Dispensationalism

If you remember like the liberal movement in the mid 1900s, that was coming out of the post mill, all mill circles. And what ends up happening, you have like Gresham Machen who like creates an alliance with the dispensational pre-millennialists.

And the reason was because they were, they were so glued to the text. In fact, one of my mentors, Larry Pettigrew used to have a saying, which he probably got from somewhere else, but pre-millennialists don't go liberal.

Why Eschatology Matters for Church Unity and Public Witness

Welcome once again to the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We have a treat for you today. I have received, I don't know how many requests to talk about eschatology over the years and briefly stated, I know I've explained this in more detail in previous podcasts, but the reason I haven't delved into this much is because my focus has been on other, I think more pressing issues, uh, related to social justice and now liberalism and those kinds of things in the church.

And, um, it's not because I don't think eschatology matters because it certainly does. And it's not because I don't think it's interesting because I think there are things about it that are interesting.

Obviously, if the Bible is interesting, then what it says about the end times is also interesting. Um, but, uh, I've just, I've wanted to, I think keep a, uh, an alliance together of people from varying eschatological views who are focused on things like let's make sure that we're opposing abortion and transgender stuff and, and in libraries and in schools and, um, other social matters, immigration and, um, and all the things that of course, if you're a regular listener, you know, we talk about, but it has come time for me to delve into this topic.

And, uh, I'm going to do it, uh, as fairly as I know how to do it, respecting the scholarly process and also, um, giving you who I consider to be some really good articulate, uh, voices on these topics.

And so we're going to delve into a number of different eschatological viewpoints for your benefit. So you can understand better if that's something you haven't studied in detail as much. And, um, and we will see how these things do affect some of the other beliefs that we also hold.

So, um, this is my first episode and I'm, this isn't live. So, uh, this, this may be something I'm recording that you're listening and this is months down the line, but, uh, we have with us a special guest from Shepherds Theological Seminary, a professor of old Testament and biblical languages, uh, Dr. Peter Gaiman.

And he is, he's been there at Shepherds Theological Seminary since 2017. He loves guiding students through God's word. Uh, he is an expert in theology. He likes talking about pop culture. He likes, uh, obviously biblical Hebrew.

He has an MDiv, THM and PhD in old Testament studies from the master seminary. And so without further ado, welcome Dr. Peter Gaiman. Thank you for coming and being with us.

Oh, it's a, it's a real privilege to be here. I've listened to many of your episodes, really appreciate all the work you've done on social justice. I actually even have your book. I forgot to tell you that.

So it's just a real privilege to be here and engaged in the conversation.

Oh, that's an honor. Which one do you have?

So it's the social justice one that you wrote. Um, the original one, it's like the blue cover. What was the title? Social justice goes to church. Yeah. Social justice goes to church. Yeah. So I think you were, you were like, you had just released it and run a deal on it.

And I was following some of your stuff and I was like, you know what, I've and I had been studying the issues. And so I was trying to get as many books as I could. So yours made the pile.

Oh, well, that's awesome. Yeah. That was an early one. That was 20. I want to say at the end of 2020, I think that came out, right. Yeah. Um, I was a little ahead of the curve, I suppose cause I didn't know what was going to happen in 2020.

And, um, that's awesome though, that you have that. And, um, I would love to, uh, you know, talk about that topic with you, but I think this is a really pressing topic that, uh, I, I suppose for me, like looking at the political landscape, I haven't really wanted to delve into this, but looking at the theological and the church landscape, I have noticed an uptick in people saying dispensationalism is a heresy.

Full stop. Uh, if you believe in dispensationalism, you're subversive, uh, dispensate, uh, dispensationalism is the root of, uh, political problems and it's why the church isn't involved in politics. And you've probably heard all these objections, I'm sure.

And so I want to, um, provide a pathway for, for those who do believe those or say those things for them to maybe simmer down a little and realize that most of the Americans in, uh, that are Christians in the United States, they are, they're going to be dispensational, whether it's from a charismatic background or even just a non-denominational Bible background.

There's, that is the vast majority of Christians in the United States and the people who vote for conservative causes and those kinds of things. And so this has become an issue in my mind on the political front that is in social front of it, it's becoming a barrier to being able to work with people a little bit.

And so I know we're probably not going to delve into that much, but, and I've already explained this to some extent, but I'm, I, I think we're, you know, I'm assuming that you probably track with me on that and you can see these kinds of barriers coming up.

And I'm hoping you can help us get over that a bit by showing a biblical case for dispensate dispensationalism showing how, you know, maybe there are versions that are heretical, but there, there are certainly versions that are not.

And, um, and just educating us on this cause we desperately need it out there. So, uh, maybe to start off, if you could just walk us through what dispensing dispense, I keep mispronouncing it, dispensationalism.

You could walk us through what that is as opposed to covenant theology.

Dispensationalism as a Hermeneutic of Consistency and Original Intent

Yeah. And I would say we need a different marketing system because the name is hard to pronounce. The name doesn't really deal with what, you know, the system's about. So it's like, you know, it's one of the things about, uh, the whole debate actually goes back to how dispensationalism came as a moniker to describe the whole movement.

And it was actually from the detractors of the premillennial movement to call them dispensationalists, even though that's never the name they called themselves. In fact, uh, recently, there's just been a lot of really good scholarly work on this recently.

And, uh, Crawford Gribben just wrote a, you know, probably the premier biography on Darby recently. And he showed how Darby himself never liked referring to dispensations, uh, would never have claimed to be a dispensationalist.

Uh, you know, just used premillennial language. And so it's often, you know, we, we often confuse things with the titles themselves. And so just admittedly, I think that there's a lot of that going on.

A lot of people, you know, they'll define dispensationalism in ways that, you know, when I hear it, I'm like, yeah, those guys are losers, whoever they are, but is that really what dispensationalism is?

You know, that's the, uh, that's the question. So the way I would define dispensationalism, you know, in the authoritative, you know, inerrant, uh, style, no, I'm just kidding, uh, is dispensationalism really is just a system of theology.

That's built primarily on a hermeneutical commitment to consistency and originalism. Okay. I like using those terms, consistency and originalism, because they really, I think they, they help people understand the terms that used to be used would be a literal grammatical historical hermeneutic.

And that's true, but a lot of people just don't know what that means now. So I think in our current cultural context, it's better to understand it in the context of consistent and originalism. And so the whole intent of dispensationalism is to read the Bible as it applied in its original context.

The author's intent is being, you know, primary in our interpretation, and we would interpret it just like anything. You know, I find it ironic where, you know, we have a lot of debates currently about how one is to interpret the constitution, for example.

And what's really fascinating to me is that from a dispensational hermeneutical lens, you know, we would say, yeah, we believe in originalism, like in the sense that what the authors intended it to mean is what it ought to mean.

We can't invent a new meaning and put it on the constitution. And the same would apply from a dispensational perspective to reading the Bible is we can't invent new meanings and put them into the text.

We need to pay special attention to what God, through his Holy Spirit, has inspired the author of scripture to write down and preserve for us in his context. And in that environment, we should be able to discern the meaning.

So how that would, and this is obviously how I would describe this, I think maybe my covenantal brothers and sisters might describe it differently, but where that might contrast with covenant theology, for example, would be that there's this openness, you could say it that way, an openness to allowing the reinterpretation of scripture.

So the thing that covenant theologians are actually very adamant about is this idea of New Testament priority. And, you know, many of your listeners will have heard that phrase before, some in a positive, some in a negative light.

And so this idea of New Testament priority means that the New Testament is the clearest revelation that we have from God. And so we can go back and reinterpret the Old Testament, or they use different adjectives sometimes, reconfigure, reimagine, understand the true meaning or fulfillment of.

And so the New Testament is, we take our understanding of what the New Testament means, and then we go back and say, even though the Old Testament seems to be saying something else, because we know what the New Testament says, the Old Testament has to mean this then.

And so the subtle pushback from somebody like myself would be what we need to strive for is not a New Testament priority, but a passage priority, meaning that the context of a passage is where that meaning will be found.

So a passage can never mean what it's never meant to say it that way. And so that really is the defining debate in the hermeneutical landscape between the different camps, is how do you let passages interpret, or how should we interpret passages of Scripture?

How do they interrelate? And so my proposition then would be that if we are understanding each passage within its own context, in the way that the original author intended, then we put together all of Scripture, Old and New Testament, in a harmony, and it gives us a cohesive whole story, which will help us understand everything then.

And I think covenant theologians would also say the same thing, but we're approaching it from a different foundational understanding. And so if that's true, if that's true then, to kind of summarize this, if my hermeneutical presupposition is correct, then that is going to lead to probably the defining mark of dispensationalism, where there's an understanding that Israel is not the same thing as the Church.

They're related, to be sure. It's not like they're unrelated at all. In fact, Scripture is very clear about their relationship in Christ. But the reality is that there's a future for Israel, as portrayed by the prophets in New Testament.

And so that's where a lot of people get really upset with dispensationalists. And they say, you know, you guys are just, you know, running cover for the secret Jewish, you know, Armada, who's, you know, messing up the world and all that stuff.

And it's like, okay, well, that's a whole different discussion, but let's just talk about what the Bible says. And you know, the Bible, I would argue, makes a clear distinction in a prophetic future, not just for Israel, but for other nations as well.

But it's okay from my perspective to have that future for nations, not just for individuals. So hopefully that wasn't too long, but that's kind of how I see the main foundational issues.

Darby, the Rapture, and Whether Dispensationalism Is Novel

Yeah. There's so many questions. You mentioned Darby, and I know John Nelson Darby is somewhat of a, like a marginalized figure now, even in political discussions. In fact, I was surprised some people know his name, but his name is becoming more and more frequently brought up as evidence that usually the political thing is that American evangelicals support the state of the modern state of Israel in some fashion.

And this is related to because of John Nelson Darby and John Nelson Darby though, was funded by Jewish interests. And so you can't trust anything in his Bible because it really wasn't out of any spiritual conviction.

It was literally just a political plan for Zionists and specifically the Roth child. That's usually what's brought up. And I looked at this once and I was like, okay, so the Roth child's had their money everywhere.

And I guess the publishing company that he used or something had some investment from a Roth child's, which like is meaningless. It obviously that doesn't carry the weight of the argument being made, but you hear this all the time.

And I would be curious if you could respond to that because I think what really what's behind all that is this assumption that dispensationalism is.

Novel.

It's so new and the purpose for it arising is this political thing. So we can just dismiss it on those grounds, which I think there might be a powerful argument in there if it really is novel and new.

Usually things that are novel and new are wrong. Like if 1900 years of church history, the people weren't saying this and all of a sudden someone discovered this, that's a cause for alarm or at least looking into it.

So is it novel? Is it new? Is it for a political purpose?

Yeah, no, there's a lot to unpack in there. And you know, obviously we don't have time to go through all of that, but I think that's such a great question because this is, I think what interests most people is they're connecting what they view in the political sphere right now.

And you know, I mean, for lack of a better term, dispensationalism ends up being the scapegoat saying, you know, you are the reason a lot of this has happened now. And, but, but here, here's the, how I would respond to that.

On the one hand, you know, you mentioned this earlier and I completely agree with you. The way to approach this isn't through some kind of emotionalism or, you know, I heard this on a podcast or read it on a blog post.

You got to go back to the original sources. And a classic example of this is this idea that the rapture never existed before Darby, that he invented it. In fact, so many Christians have this idea that Darby, you know, took the idea of the rapture from a girl, Margaret McDonald, who was really influenced in this, in these charismatic circles and she had dreams and Darby heard it was like, wow, that's a great idea.

I'm going to invent that, you know, and it's going to be so great. And you say, okay. And there have been really prominent Christians who have bought into that, you know, today. But even if you look back at Martin Lloyd Jones, he actually talked about that too.

And so it's not just like these nobodies that were convinced by this, but I go back to, you know, the, you know, the recent biography that came out by Crawford Gribben. And this is again, just his really good historical research, reading the writings of Darby and those all around him.

And Gribben's book, by the way, was published by Oxford Press. So it's not like it was self-published or anything like that. I mean, this was really fine academic work. Yeah. And what one of the things that he found was that Darby actually, so it's specifically stated in the writings around Darby and some of his friends, that they know exactly where he first heard the idea of the rapture from.

And it was from a guy by the name of Thomas Tweedy, who was a missionary in South America. And so if you think about it, we have, you know, actual historical evidence for where Darby first heard the idea of a pre-tribulational rapture.

And so it already was in existence prior to Darby, and it was one of the missionaries from the Brethren movement who was in South America who had mentioned that. And yet you'll still see most people saying,.

Okay,.

Margaret MacDonald was the one who first came up with this and it's repeated in all these seminary classrooms. But that to me is one of the telltale signs of whether or not somebody is actually willing to have a real conversation on these things, is if they're willing to say, okay, I had always heard that, but I can actually see in the historical evidence that that's not true anymore.

And so, yeah, we can actually argue about whether or not the pre-tribulational rapture existed in the early Church, or whether it, you know, developed in the early years or whatever. But there's too much evidence now for that to say that Darby was the sole inventor of it.

William Watson had a book, Dispensationalism Before Darby, where he just looked at English sources, so only English from the 17th century, showing where people believed that the Church was going to be removed before the Tribulation.

And so that's at least tracing it back to the 1600s, only in the English-speaking world. So again, you look at these things, they're all available for us, but of course we have to read the books, we have to do the research.

And my good friend Corey Marsh and his co-editor James Fazio just came out with a book called Discovering Dispensationalism. And just by its very title, a lot of people are just turned off by it because they're like, oh, I don't want anything to do with it.

But it's a really great historical analysis. They go through the different eras of Church history saying, okay, dispensationalism as a system, obviously nobody should make an argument that dispensationalism as a system existed prior to Darby and Schofield.

They systematized it like Calvin systematized Reformed thought, and that's fine. But the reality is that the components of dispensational thought existed throughout Church history, whether it be a distinction between Israel and the Church, a future for Israel among the nations in the Millennial Kingdom, you know, all these things that a lot of people say it's so original.

I mean, there's just so much evidence within the early Church writings, within the medieval period even. You know, I read another book recently, there's so many good books coming out on this now. Michael Spiegel from Dallas just came out with a book on the early Church eschatology, and he examined Irenaeus specifically.

And Irenaeus, you read him, he sounds a lot like dispensationalist today. And that's a second century father.

Premillennialism, Historic Premillennialism, and the Early Church

That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about because, um, so that my understanding has been that as a system, it didn't arise until the late 19th century. Uh, but that in the form of Kiliasm, I hope I'm pronouncing that right in the early Church, there is this rudimentary form of premillennialism and that, um, some, so historic premillennialists will claim this.

And maybe we can get into the differences between historic and then dispensational premillennialism, but that they will claim it as theirs, um, to separate themselves and say that they, the early Church believe what they teach and now, but that it was, it was actually so rudimentary, um, the basis for both systems, for both, uh, dispensational premillennialism and historic premillennialism are actually found in the early Church.

And that sounds to me, uh, like what you're saying.

Right. Yeah. And I think it's, it's important to understand you can't really, nobody really should debate. This is that the early Church was, well, let me say it this way, because you want to say it in a fair way, is that you'd have to say it this way, all the evidence we have, we'll say it that way.

So out of all the evidence we have on the early Church is that they were almost universally premillennial. And so that would include, uh, Irenaeus, it would include Tertullian. It would include, uh, Justin Martyr.

All of them are definitively premill. All right. And so one of the interesting things about that, I don't think you can really deny that. In fact, I posted a quote by Justin Martyr recently on my Twitter page where Martyr says that all Orthodox Christians of our time are premillennialists.

And it's like, wow. Okay. That's, that's pretty, pretty distinct there. Now what's interesting about that is you have somebody like Justin Martyr who did not believe in, uh, a difference between Israel and the Church.

He thought that the Church was, was Israel. Okay. So he thought the Church was new Israel. And in one sense, I, so I think he's wrong on that, but I think it's okay. You shouldn't expect that every single person in Church history is going to believe the same thing.

There's all, all these variations of belief, but out of all the evidence we have, the early eschatological position of the Church is premillennial. In fact, they use that to argue against that, that just insipid Gnosticism.

It was actually a good apologetic tool saying, listen, the spiritual isn't, isn't all there is because when God comes back, it's going to be a physical kingdom. And so they use that as an argument against Gnosticism.

And so even apologetically, it's, it's very helpful. So you asked a little bit about the difference between historic and dispensational premill. And I think a lot of people make it more of a difference than there actually is.

But the way that I typically, and you might ask that question in all fairness and get 10 different answers from 10 different people. So you're just going to get my answer. So here you go. Uh, so the way I would answer that is simply that historic premill allows there to be flexibility on whether or not you could be a covenant theologian and hold to.

It.

So you could believe that the Church is the fulfilled Israel or the new Israel and not believe in a specific future for Israel, but still hold to a future 1000 year kingdom, uh, that's going to be brought about by the return of Christ.

And so I think that's probably the biggest difference there is that you can believe in the timeframe of premillennialism eschatologically, but the ecclesiology and maybe even the framework of covenant theology, you're not going to, you're not going to buy, or you're okay with that.

And you're not going to buy into the, you know, the, as I would say, the dispensational distinction between Israel and the Church kind of idea. Although I need to also add with that, that it's kind of murky on that because you do have people who historically have held to covenant theology that have held to a difference between Israel and the Church.

So I wish it was clear, but, but I know you've studied a lot of history and you just know that those things get murky sometimes as you can't fit people nicely into boxes that way.

Well, it seems like most of the covenantal guys, I know when I asked them about this, they will say, Oh, of course all of Israel's going to be saved. And that means ethnic Jews. And, uh, I'm like, well, that's, that's being called dispensationalism by some people online that, that said this, but you know, clearly you're, I mean, Jonathan Edwards believed that, right.

I think, uh, towards the end of his life, he's reading the newspaper and looking at events in the Middle East and thinking, how does this fit in? Uh, because he thought that the ethnic Jews were going to some return to the land or something like that.

I remember reading that, I think in Marsden's biography of him. Yeah. Um, so go ahead.

I was just going to add on that. Cause that's a really great point because the traditional, the Princetonian form of post-millennialism, a lot of the enemies of dispensationalism will often come from like the post-mill camps.

And I have a lot of really great post-mill friends. I'm thankful for that. But one of the things that's really fascinating to me is you look at, um, like Charles Hodge and his, you know, great systematic theology and, and he was such a great representative of, of that Princetonian post-mill movement and he held to a future for Israel and in his systematic theology, he talks about that.

He even believed in the future antichrist and stuff like that. And so you're just like, wait, you're post-mill and you do all these things. You say all these things that dispensationalists get accused of.

And so it is kind of fascinating to see that overlap.

The New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Well, let's talk a little bit more about dispensationalism itself, uh, theologically. Like when I talk to a dispensationalist, typically our conversation starts in Daniel. I don't know if that's across the board, but it's like, let's, let's open to Daniel.

If I talk to, um, uh, a post-mill guy, right. It's always like Psalm two or something, right. That's where they like to start. And if it's an Amil guy, I guess, uh, it's like, um, it's, uh, when Jesus is talking about, uh, the, what's the name of that discourse?

Is it the, uh,.

The all of it discourse? Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's the all of it discourse that I typically, my friends who are on mill want to start with. And, um, and I've wondered if like, did the starting points then determine where you end up on this?

But I think what you said at the beginning was good about, uh, the hermeneutic because, um, a good friend of mine, maybe I'll even have him represent the Amil side. I don't know. Russell Fuller, who was a Hebrew guy at Southern seminary for years and he teaches now, uh, privately, but he, uh, he is someone who believes that there's a future for ethnic Israel.

He also believes that, uh, the promises or the prophecies I should say that are in the old Testament made about Jesus aren't always clear from the old Testament. So I remember having a conversation with him once and he's like, well, we have to read the old Testament through the new Testament essentially.

And so that's, I think how he comes up with the Amil understanding of things. Whereas what you said seems different than that, which is, uh, I, I guess my curiosity would be like, how do you jive things where Jesus seems to take a prophecy and you, you look back at the old Testament and you're like, I don't see that here, but I guess, right.

Okay. Jesus is the one saying that. So does that fit into the grammatical historical approach that you were speaking of before?

Yeah, no, that's, uh, such a great question. Really. So, so the question that you're asking, which, I mean, I think, I think it's exactly the right question. Cause it, it really is the crux of the debate is how does the new Testament use the old Testament?

How does Jesus use it? How did the apostles use it? And so to be, you know, completely transparent, that's probably the main reason why people don't wind up premillennial. Uh, there's actually so many, it's, there are so many cool quotes from like Postmill and Amil guys where they say, you know, if we just take the old Testament prophecies by themselves, we have to be premillennial.

And you're just like, yeah, that is exact. Often one of the things that I'll throw out to people just as kind of a jest is that if you didn't have the new Testament, what eschatological position would you be?

And if they're honest, they would have to say premillennial because it talks about a future for Israel that comes after a tribulation, Zechariah 14, all those things. And so then the question is, does the new Testament change things?

And so our presupposition, you know, it goes, it does go back always to my presuppositions, right? So my presupposition is that God is going to reveal himself through human language in the way that humans communicate.

So when you and I communicate, for example, we had exchanged a few emails trying to set up times and things like that. Well, when we set up our time, I didn't read that and say, I think he's speaking metaphorically about just some time in the future.

You know, it was just like, no, you gave me a time and I was like, well, I know when that's going to be. I don't want to be a jerk and not show up for that, you know, kind of idea. And that's how we normally communicate as human beings.

But then for some reason, and I know, you know, there are reasons for this, but in my opinion, they're not good reasons. We'll take the details of Scripture and then kind of minimize those and say, well, this is probably allegorical here and things like that.

But the reality is that when Jesus uses the Old Testament and the Apostles use the Old Testament, there are some difficult issues, no question about it. But so far, and again, this is where, you know, some of the listeners will be like, okay, he is totally crazy, but I'm going to be going to say it anyway, is that so far in each of those instances that I've studied, I have not found an area where a compelling case couldn't be made for the fact that Jesus or the Apostles were using the Old Testament contextually.

And in fact, one of the greatest influences in my life on that issue was actually amillennialist Greg Beale. So Greg Beale, of all people, you know, he's an amillennialist. His hermeneutical works and his little book on the New Testament use of the Old, he gave principles there saying like, hey, we need to be looking for them to use things contextually.

And very, very influential on little old me, you know, who doesn't agree amillennial, but really he just had such a great framework. So I really appreciate him for that. And the book I always recommend people on that is the book by Abner Chow, the biblical, and it's the hermeneutics of the biblical writers.

And I think he makes just a fantastic case for the fact that in these difficult passages with Jesus using the Old Testament or the Apostles using the Old Testament, they're actually using it in a way that is contextual with what the author of the Old Testament intended.

Now, so I'll say that like as a period exclamation point, whatever, but then I'll take a step back and say, even if it could be proved that there were one or two passages that were not used contextually, everybody still should agree that, you know, 99 of the New Testament use of the Old is a contextual use.

So maybe there could be an allowance if we could somehow definitively prove that this was used non-contextually. And then maybe we open ourselves up to say, well, this was a special use that the Holy Spirit inspired this author.

But, you know, we're talking, you know, most of the time, it's not even debated whether or not they're used contextually.

Israel, the Church, and the Covenants

Okay. So maybe the next place to go to would be the elements of continuity and discontinuity between church and Israel then. So you go, you, you, you take a walk through scripture, right? And you see these covenants forming between God and Abraham and God and David.

And in each one, there is a promise to descendants. Land is included in this. There's going to be a future kingdom. And you, you walk through, as you just said, you get to even the later prophets right before Jesus or 400 years before Jesus comes back.

And they are saying the same thing that there's going to be this restoration coming. And, and so there's this immanency or anticipation that obviously that's why, what the Jewish people were confused about Jesus at first that thinking that he's, he's that person, he's going to usher in all the things that we've read about and, and they were ready for it.

So then this thing called the church, though is instituted by Christ. And I think that's where most of the battle now is, is that does the church absorb all these promises somehow we're because Abraham was looking for the city without foundation.

Was that the church? Was he just looking at the spiritual reality? It wasn't really going to be long-term a physical land. Like those were training wheels to get us to understand this greater meaning.

I don't know if Augustine was the one who came up with some of these interpretations or where, where that came from, but it, it does seem like if you read most of the magisterial reformers, that's what they're saying.

Obviously a Catholic doctrine still holds this teaching. So maybe walk us through that. How did that happen? And, uh, are we going to just say that most of the people who believe this in church history were wrong?

How could they get something so wrong if that's true? And then it, you know, it, was there an element of truth to what they were saying? Like maybe they were partially there because there, there are things like does seem like the church is somewhat of a new temple.

It does seem like the people have, right. So there are these elements of continuity. So maybe walk us through that.

Yeah. Another great topic of discussion that we could spend hours on. Uh, so maybe to kind of give us like a framework for that, you know, maybe, maybe I'd say, I'd say it this way, just out of the gate.

Uh, when we look at God's covenantal promises to Israel, uh, through the Noahic, well, and I should say Noahic covenant, even is fascinating to study in and of itself, because that's to the whole world, all of creation, not just humanity, but all of creation is, is a participant in that.

And the promise specifically is to not flood the world again. And so it's interesting because if you were to ask, you know, the average Christian, will God flood the world again? You know, most Christians would say, no, absolutely not.

And you'd say, why? Because God promised that he would not flood the world. So you're just like, okay, God had promised specifically that he would not flood the world. And because of the, you know, letter of the promise, if you will, uh, we know that that's, what's God, what God's going to do.

And then you have the Abrahamic covenant promising specific things, you know, and the, the land boundaries aren't just, they're not just, uh, theoretical, they're very specific, you know, to the Euphrates, to the river of Egypt.

So there's these massive land boundaries, which far surpass what current modern Israel experiences today. And they actually far surpass what Israel ever experienced under the conquest and what they experienced under Solomon.

And so they have never received that land promise. So what are you going to do with that? Uh, that's one of the big sticking issues. Uh, and of course the counter argument is that, well, that was just a type and the type absolves and the counter type.

I just, um, I'm not convinced by that, but that's another discussion. So you, you look at these promises and then you, you, you have them very distinctly laid out. And patterning throughout scripture is you see God being faithful to his promises throughout.

Uh, for example, in the Mosaic covenant then, which happens on the heels of the Abrahamic, God says that if you do this as a nation, you know, you will undergo famine, you'll under undergo locusts. And you see that throughout scripture.

You see them undergo famine when they sin. The whole book of Joel is about how they've sinned and now they've undergone this locust plague and all these things. So just to the letter fulfillment on the nation of Israel for their covenantal treachery.