February 20, 2024 Show with Blake White AND Zach Maxcey on “The Covenant vs. New Covenant Theology Divide”

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February 21, 2024

00:03: Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
00:11: George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
00:16: Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
00:23: Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:10: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
01:15: Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is
01:20: Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 20th day of February 2024.
01:30: I'm asking for continued prayers from my listeners, you folks, hundreds of you responded to my prayer request a couple of weeks ago about my bout with Bell's palsy.
01:45: Well, it seems as just when the Bell's palsy vanished from my system,
01:54: I now am battling what appears to be
01:59: COVID. And the reason why I say that with a certain amount of certainty is
02:06: I got ill the next day after having a business meeting with one of my advertising clients who was diagnosed with COVID, and I stupidly used his pen to sign the contract.
02:24: So, in fact, on my way home after getting that contract signed, it hit me, uh -oh,
02:32: I used his pen, and sure enough, the next day, I got sick, so I'm assuming it is also
02:38: COVID. I don't know that for a fact, but I am using my friend pharmacist
02:46: Banu Gadi's protocol of mega doses of vitamin D3, and it appears to be working because I am steadily getting better, but I appreciate your prayers.
02:57: Today, we are having a program featuring two folks who are involved in the
03:07: John Bunyan conference that is coming up just around the corner in Franklin, Tennessee.
03:13: I have many fond memories permanently etched upon my heart connected with the
03:21: John Bunyan conference because when I was a young Christian, I began to regularly attend the
03:29: John Bunyan conference, first in Louisburg, Pennsylvania, and then in New Ringle, Pennsylvania, when they were being led by John Reisinger and Fred Zaspel, and it was always a joy to attend those events.
03:47: I met many new friends that are still my friends today, and I was always treated with an overwhelming measure of love and grace and an
04:01: Irenic spirit, even though I have always been a member, ever since my salvation, of a church, a
04:10: Reformed Baptist church that is a 1689 confessional, covenantal
04:17: Reformed Baptist church, and that is really what we're talking about today, the divide between covenant theology and new covenant theology amongst sovereign grace -believing
04:28: Baptists, and to discuss this today are Blake White, who is lead pastor of Southside Baptist Church of Abilene, Texas.
04:39: He's an author and a conference speaker. Welcome, for the very first time, to Iron Shepherd and Zion Radio, Blake White.
04:47: Hey, glad to be here. Thanks for having me. And we're also joined by Zach Maxey, who is really running the conference that I just mentioned coming up.
04:58: He is an elder at Grace Covenant Church of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and president of Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology.
05:09: Welcome back to the program, Zach. Hey, Chris. Great to be back, and great to be with both of you.
05:18: By the way, I know being a native New Yorker, I'm mispronouncing the name of your city. How do you pronounce that?
05:26: Oh, it's Portsmouth, but that's fine. Okay. Well, let's start with you,
05:33: Pastor Blake, because we have a tradition here in Iron Shepherd and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, including any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised, and what kind of providential circumstances our
05:51: Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. And since you are our only first -time guest today,
06:00: I'd love to hear your story. Yeah, you bet. God's been very kind to me, like He's been kind to all of us.
06:07: In Texas, and especially West Texas, everyone, I mean, almost everyone says they're a Christian.
06:13: There's a lot of Protestant influence and, you know, just a lot of nominal Christianity, and that would have been me.
06:19: Most of my life, I'd go to church a few times a year, usually for the activities or the girls, and thought
06:25: I was a Christian, didn't know any better. And my freshman year of college, so I moved away and went there to play basketball, another city in Texas, Temple, Texas, and basically was in a rough spot, a rough relationship, was really just pursuing the world, and it wasn't satisfying.
06:46: And I knew enough being a West Texas boy, okay, I need to clean up my act. Part of cleaning up my act,
06:53: I mean, I need to go to church more. And so I ended up attending church more and really started to understand the gospel slowly but surely and realized, oh, it's not that I needed to clean up my act,
07:04: I needed to be born again. I didn't know the Lord. And so I thought I did, and I began to understand what it means to be a
07:10: Christian, to be born again, understanding the concepts of sin and faith and repentance. And so at 19,
07:17: I became a Christian, and I'm very thankful. There's many people that I was running with there, but for the grace of God, it's just a clear testimony of God's sovereign kindness in my life to open my eyes and show me the air of my way and ultimately show me
07:31: I was a false convert. And how did you come to discover the doctrines of sovereign grace?
07:39: So that was the next year. The next year, I transferred and was done with basketball, which was in many ways my idol at the time, and transferred to a school in San Angelo, Texas.
07:48: And there was a group of Calvinists at that school, and to be honest, they were a little bit worldly.
07:56: And in fact, I remember one time playing pickup basketball. They got in a fight with this group of friends, got in a fight with the other team, a fist fight, a bunch of unbelievers.
08:06: You mean like what happens every time we have a business meeting at my church? That's right.
08:14: And so I didn't I didn't like these guys. And I didn't know much about Calvinism, but I decided
08:20: I wanted to prove them wrong because in my mind they were giving they were giving Christ a bad a bad rap.
08:25: And I didn't like their theology. I was zealous for evangelism. And in my simple mind at the time, if God predestined people, why?
08:31: What's the point of evangelism? And so I just kind of went on a journey on my own studying. And in those days, you know, this was before the days of Google.
08:39: This is probably 2000, 2002, 2003. And I jumped on what probably was
08:45: AskJeeves .com and just started looking for resources to try to prove this stuff wrong.
08:51: And I just remember DesiringGod .org didn't know anything about it, didn't know anything about John Piper.
08:57: But man, at the time it had a lot of resources. And one of the early articles recommended a book by J .I.
09:04: Packer. Again, that name meant nothing to me, but it was called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. And so that was my issue was evangelism.
09:11: And so I'm looking at both sides and basically one side, the Armenian side would say, yeah, this verse sounds like it's teaching this, but here's really what's going on.
09:21: And then the more Calvinistic side would say, yeah, this verse says this, and that's actually what it means. And then when
09:27: I grabbed Packer, the fog just cleared for me and I understood a compatibilistic view of God's sovereignty and human freedom.
09:36: So basically I wanted to prove it wrong, and I lost that battle. That happened with me as well.
09:44: When I got saved out of Roman Catholicism, I was horrified by learning about the
09:51: Calvinistic theology of the church where I was attending and where I was going to be baptized.
09:59: And not that I knew anything about Calvinism or even knew who Calvin was, but when
10:04: I started to hear about their stance on predestination and unconditional election,
10:10: I had never heard about those concepts before, even at evangelical churches where I visited while still a lapsed
10:19: Catholic. And I even told my elders when they were preparing to baptize me,
10:26: I don't know if I'm ever going to believe in this Calvinism stuff. And sure enough, a member of the church gave me the booklet,
10:34: George Whitfield's Letter to John Wesley on Election. And I didn't know who either of those men from history were, but it was the biblical proof that Whitfield presented to Wesley that convinced me.
10:49: And my first reaction was, oh no, this is true, but I still hate it.
10:56: But then within maybe two months at the most, I fell in love with those teachings.
11:02: So how did you know that you had to call upon your life to become a pastor? Well, it was actually tied to that discovery.
11:11: So I was very zealous for the Lord and zealous for evangelism, zealous for false converts. Since that had been me,
11:18: I was very zealous to help people understand true and false conversion. And really it was through understanding the character of God, the nature of grace, really understanding grace that really just opened my eyes, knocked me back on my back, humbled me.
11:34: And obviously God became God and the Godness of God was restored and God became a lot bigger in my life.
11:40: And I just became really consumed with understanding him through his word and wanting to help others understand and know him through his word.
11:51: And so that discovery, that was Easter of 2003,
11:57: I believe, and just got so passionate about it, I didn't want to do anything else. My plan at the time was to go coach basketball, hopefully at the college level.
12:05: But I just became convinced that I wasn't going to find what I was looking for going that route and I wasn't going to be happy doing anything other than helping people understand
12:15: God through teaching the Bible. And that just began a process, though. That was an internal calling
12:20: I felt and thankfully had an external calling through some friends and through the local church and ultimately went to seminary and then got equipped and have been in it ever since.
12:30: But really, it was understanding sovereign grace that propelled me into the ministry.
12:35: Well, praise God for that, brother. And we are discussing something today that both you two men and I disagree over.
12:51: I perhaps disagree over it far less radically than many who are in the so -called covenant theology camp, the 1689
13:04: London Baptist Confession camp. And I've always, ever since my earliest days of Christianity, maintained close friendships with men of God from both of those camps.
13:20: I never found the differences to be of the great magnitude that advocates of either position find them to be.
13:35: And I have always felt at home visiting churches outside of whatever 1689 confessional church
13:45: I happen to be a member of at the time. And I think that one of my goals today is to educate people on the differences of these two camps.
13:56: But also, I am praying that there is more unity and more of an
14:04: Irenic attitude that develops between these two camps of sovereign grace believing
14:10: Christians, because I believe that what we have in common far outweighs the differences we have.
14:19: And I have witnessed in the last, let's see, how many years has it been?
14:29: 43 years or so, I was saved in my 20s, and I have witnessed over these decades since the 1980s a far greater unity than existed in the 1980s and 1990s between these two camps.
14:54: In fact, you would hardly ever see interaction between these two camps, at least cordial interaction.
15:04: But I have to hand it to the late John Riesinger, because he did on occasion invite
15:11: Covenantal Reform Baptists to speak at the John Bunyan conferences.
15:18: And one of them is a brother now in heaven whose name escapes me because either because I'm 62 years old or because I am battling the sickness.
15:31: But a brother from England originally, and hopefully that will come to me later. But I remember being very blessed by that brother who spoke at the
15:39: John Bunyan conference. But if you could, and by the way, folks, just to let you know why you're not going to be hearing
15:45: Zach Maxey too often, unless he has a question for Blake White, is that he is serving really as a co -host during the first 90 minutes, and he will be my guest alone during the last half hour.
16:00: So, but if you could lay out the primary differences between these two camps within Sovereign Grace Believing Baptists.
16:15: Yeah. So within the Baptist fold, it's a different discussion than within Presbyterian Covenant Theology.
16:23: And as you said, there's so much common ground. Some of my best friends are 1689 men. Even here in town, one of the churches that we basically consider an informal sister church is 1689 church.
16:35: So, yeah, I want to preface that. It's obviously an in -house debate, even within, you know, dispensationalism or Presbyterian Covenant Theology.
16:43: All of us are within the evangelical camp with a high view of Scripture and majoring on the major is so much in common, which is increasingly important in our completely secular age.
16:54: But within the differences within the Baptist realm, you could easily summarize it by saying the substructure is a little different.
17:03: So 1689 is the second London, which is built off the Westminster Confession in so many ways.
17:10: It's the same thing with just a few, a few I's dotted differently and T's crossed differently when it comes to making it a
17:16: Baptist confession. But the substructure is still Covenant Theology based on those three covenants, redemption, grace and works.
17:24: There's now also diversity within 1689 when we're talking about Reformed Baptist or 1689 federalism.
17:30: So there's lots of nuances. So it's hard to generalize without being unfair to somebody. But the substructure would be different because New Covenant Theology or Progressive Covenant realism would not be structured around those three theological covenants.
17:44: But where the rubber really meets the road is when it comes to moral law. And 1689 will call moral law the
17:52: Decalogue. And New Covenant Theology would say the Decalogue is part of the law covenant that Christians are not under.
17:58: Now, nine of the 10 are repeated very clearly in the New Testament. So where the rubber meets the road is the
18:05: Sabbath commandment. Yeah, that is where the rubber meets the road, because most 1689 confessional
18:16: Reformed Baptists, if they were to visit a
18:21: New Covenant Theology Baptist church, they might not even know it unless this issue of the
18:26: Sabbath comes up and or unless the specific differences on the
18:33: Decalogue come up during that worship service. That is one of the reasons why
18:39: I have been comfortable having a fellowship with brethren in both camps.
18:46: And by the way, I wanted to let you know that I did finally remember who that confessional 1689
18:54: Reformed Baptist was that preached at the John Bunyan conference, William Payne. Okay.
19:01: He is now with the Lord. Wow. Now, so when you became a believer in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, Blake, were you at first a 1689 man and later became
19:21: New Covenant? Because that seems to be the story with a lot of folks, although I do know of men where the reverse was true.
19:31: They started out as New Covenant and became 1689 men. But tell us about that specifically.
19:38: Yeah. So, again, I was brand new to everything, had no Christian upbringing, and realized that I was wrong about how
19:45: God saved sinners. So I was very, at that time, very, you know, epistemically humble.
19:51: Okay. I was way off. So let me just learn for a little while. And then the men that were most helpful to me during that time were really, you know,
20:00: Reformed Presbyterians. I mentioned Packer, good Anglican. But also, as I began to read and trying to learn,
20:08: R .C. Sproul was hugely helpful. I mentioned Piper was helpful. But it was mostly men who baptized babies.
20:15: And I did not really, at the time, you know, I didn't know. Being in West Texas, there's a lot of Baptist churches.
20:22: So if I would go to a church, it tended to be a Baptist church. But at the time, I thought, well, I'm learning the
20:27: Bible. Maybe I should become Presbyterian. I see elders in the Bible. Presbyterians have elders leading.
20:33: So maybe I should become Presbyterian. So my next journey was on the whole issue of what do I believe about baptism? Wow. And as I began to study the issue, you know, you study infant baptism.
20:46: And with all due respect to so many that I've learned from, there's not New Testament evidence for infant baptism.
20:52: So when you're looking into the argument, what do you find? You find covenant theology. And for me, that was all brand new.
20:59: Obviously, these covenants that they were talking about, you can't find them directly in the Bible. So for a new believer, I was very confused.
21:05: I'm just trying to understand what covenant theology was as a new believer. On the other end, dispensationalism was also honestly just kind of strange to me as I tried to understand what was going on.
21:16: And providentially, as I'm trying to figure out what the Bible taught on this, trying to read, trying to understand the systems, trying to master the
21:25: New Testament, I had taken a semester off in college where I was traveling to various universities in Texas in order to share the gospel and try to train people to share the gospel through the
21:36: Baptist student ministry. And I landed in Houston for about six weeks. I was visiting. I was just looking up various Reformed churches to visit while I was there since it was just temporary.
21:46: And I landed in a church called Mills Road Baptist Church in northwest Houston. And it was a
21:52: Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. And I meet the pastor who's now retired, but his name is Larry Newcomer.
21:57: He used to come to Bunyan. In fact, we would come together at times. And Larry, I'm talking with Larry.
22:03: I met him. I introduced myself. And I'm telling him where I'm at, trying to figure out what I believe about baptism.
22:09: And he says, hey, you ought to buy this book. And he points me over to his book table. And it was a book, a little red book called
22:15: Abraham's Four Seeds, subtitle, A Critical Examination of the Presuppositions of Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism.
22:22: And I thought, well, there you go. That's exactly what I need. And I read John Riesinger's book.
22:27: It was just really helpful. I had just dabbled enough to understand the systems a little bit. And in that book,
22:33: John's really not doing positive construction but critical deconstruction. And he just was very helpful to see the problems with both systems and even how they share the same hermeneutic.
22:44: They just apply it to different things. So they fail to consistently apply a
22:50: Christ -centered hermeneutic to two different areas. So covenant theology fails to apply a
22:55: Christ -centered hermeneutic to the issue of offspring. And they take over into the new covenant and say, well, just like Abraham was to circumcise his offspring, so a believer is to baptize his offspring.
23:09: And they miss that Christ is the mediator, not the believer. So it's Christ and his offspring. How do you become an offspring of Christ?
23:15: Through faith. So it entails a believer's church, in other words. And then on the other hand,
23:20: Dispensationalism fails to bring the land promise through Christ and see that every promise is yes in him.
23:26: And Christ also transforms who the people of God are. It doesn't matter anymore, circumcision or uncircumcision.
23:32: It's all unity in Christ. So that book really cleared the air for me. And again, he's not really advocating for new covenant theology in that book so much, but that set me on a trajectory, helped me understand the
23:43: New Testament. And then the next year, I go to Southern Seminary. And my first semester,
23:50: I take hermeneutics with a guy that I'd never heard of named Stephen Wellham. Really, it just worked out with my schedule to take his class.
23:56: And then the first few weeks, Stephen Wellham starts laying out hermeneutically Abraham's four seeds.
24:02: So I'll go up to Dr. Wellham after class and ask, Hey, have you ever heard of John Riesinger? This all sounds very familiar.
24:09: And he said, Oh, yeah, yeah. John discipled me. John married my wife and I. And I took everything that Dr.
24:14: Wellham taught after that. And really, now after a decade of consecutive exposition, my convictions about new covenant theology have only strengthened over the years.
24:25: Now, Brother Wellham was actually one of the speakers at the last John Bunyan conference where I was in attendance, where I actually had the privilege of moderating the
24:35: Q &A session. And he is not squarely in the new covenant theology camp, however.
24:41: Am I correct on that? Well, this is where you get into a matter of definitions. Your listeners may be interested.
24:47: I actually did an interview with Dr. Wellham, actually just published about six weeks ago, on the relationship between progressive covenantalism and new covenant theology.
24:57: And so when it comes to mainstream published new covenant theology, you really can't find a difference between it and progressive covenantalism.
25:07: Oh, that's interesting. By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with that name, Stephen Wellham is the principal of Toronto Baptist Seminary.
25:17: And you reminded me that I've got to get him back on the program. And his brother, actually, did
25:25: I say Stephen? I meant to say Kirk, I believe. I'm getting the two. That's right.
25:30: Stephen's in Louisville. Right. And which one were you attributing to your growth in the understanding?
25:36: Kirk or Stephen? Stephen there in Southern Seminary. Okay. Sorry for mixing those up.
25:42: But I've got to get them both back on, whatever the case may be. By the way, when we come back from our break,
25:50: Zach, just let me know if you have a question of your own that you'd like to ask as well. But if anybody in the audience would like to ask a question, submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,
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36:29: Go to royaldiadem .com today. Mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with our guests,
36:35: Blake White and Zach Maxey, who are discussing the divide that exists between Sovereign Grace Believing Baptists over the issue of Covenant Theology versus New Covenant Theology.
36:50: And if you have a question, send it to chrisarensen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.
36:56: And before I go to any of our listener questions, I'd like Zach Maxey to give our listeners all the details that they need regarding the upcoming
37:07: John Bunyan Conference. Yeah, certainly,
37:12: Chris. So, the 2024 John Bunyan Conference is going to be held at Grace Church in Franklin.
37:20: So, actually, we heard an advertisement by Bill Sasser from Grace Church in Franklin. Very generous supporter of this show.
37:28: And I thank God for the benevolence and generosity of Pastor Bill.
37:34: And I love him and his wife, Lynn, dearly. And I cannot ever thank them enough for loving this show so much that they share the money that God has blessed them with with us.
37:46: Yeah. They're a wonderful brother and sister in Christ. And the conference will be held
37:53: Sunday, April 14th through Wednesday, April 17th.
37:59: And so, for the actual conference schedule, I'll just go through some of the names who will be speaking.
38:06: So, we'll have Dr. Ted Bear from movieguide .com. He's been on the show, too, in the past.
38:14: Oh, I wasn't aware of that. And he'll be speaking on the Christian and the
38:19: TV film industry. And so, how do we as Christians navigate that particular avenue of entertainment in a secular world?
38:29: The theme of the conference, I forgot to mention, is the glorious hope of Christ in the new covenant.
38:35: And so, with everything going on in the world and the crazy times and the interesting times in which we live, the board at PTINCT, we came together and we wanted to offer a theme of hope to encourage the body of Christ with.
38:51: And Pastor Greg Van Court will be speaking on the nature of true hope.
38:58: So, we'll have Dr. Richard Lucas, which we've already been talking about this growing conversation or dialogue between 1689
39:09: Baptists and new covenant theologians and progressive covenantalists.
39:15: And so, Dr. Richard Lucas will be speaking on the hope for theological rapprochement among Calvinistic Baptists.
39:24: And so, that's where his hope really lies, is discussing how to build bridges between those two groups.
39:33: Pastor Gary George will be speaking on the near -death experience, a false hope or another gospel?
39:41: Dr. Brent Parker will be speaking on the hope of the new exodus. And so, implications for covenant and dispensational theologies.
39:48: We'll have Renee Frey speaking on Isaiah 1619. So, the incarnate God is our glory and eschatological hope.
39:55: I'll be speaking on Titus 2 .13, the blessed hope. Pastor Blake White will be speaking on Romans 8, the hope of the new creation.
40:03: We'll have a question and answer panel. And Pastor Bill Sasser of Grace Church will be speaking on Genesis 315.
40:12: So, and for information as it comes available, folks who want to either watch the conference online, can watch it via Grace Church's video feed if they're unable to physically attend.
40:28: And as information becomes available, it's on the ptinct .org
40:35: website. Great. And I have a couple of your speakers lined up for interviews.
40:43: My friend, Pastor Gary George, who I've known since the early 1990s when
40:50: I began attending the John Bunyan Conference. He's going to be speaking on my show on this very same topic that he's addressing at your conference on near -death experiences.
41:02: And Greg Van Court is also scheduled on the show. By the way, Gary is on Monday, March 4th.
41:09: Greg Van Court is on Tuesday, March 5th. And I'm not sure. Did you say
41:14: Ken Powers was one of your speakers? I guess not.
41:19: I didn't say Ken Powers, but Renee Frey from Quebec, Canada.
41:25: The only reason I say that is Ken Powers is on my show Wednesday. And right now, I can't remember the topic that we're addressing.
41:33: But anyway, mark your calendars for March 4th and 5th for two of the speakers for the
41:40: John Bunyan Conference. It will be on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. But do you have any questions for Blake White before I go to a listener question?
41:52: No, it's actually been really good just listening. So I have nothing to add, really, to what
41:58: Pastor Blake has said. Okay, we have, let's see,
42:05: Francine in Nolensville, Tennessee. And Francine asks,
42:14: From what I understand from people who I have met in the New Covenant Theology camp, there is a divide between confessional, referring to the
42:26: First London Baptist Confession, and non -confessional or even anti -confessional
42:32: Baptists. I was wondering where you men stood on that issue. Yeah, I would be very worried about a non -confessional mindset, individually or corporately.
42:47: So it's just a matter of which one, obviously. So, you know, with New Covenant, we would disagree with the
42:53: Covenant Theology substructure of 1689. But there are many that are great. Obviously, there was a
42:58: First London. I often have to remind people of that. There was a First London. But I think for healthy preservation of truth, confessions are necessary.
43:11: Yeah, in fact, John, once again, John Riesinger, the late John Riesinger, in his graciousness, had a confessional
43:22: Reformed Baptist give a wonderful presentation on the need of confessions at one of those
43:33: John Bunyan conferences I attended in the early 1990s.
43:40: And I was very blessed by that. And his is another name that completely escapes me right now, either because of my age or my sickness.
43:48: Even though I've known this dear brother for years and have had him on my program, his name escapes me right now.
43:55: He is the author of, actually, my favorite biography, A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cone.
44:07: And I wonder if that dear brother is still with us. I haven't spoken to him in many years.
44:14: He was elderly the last time I spoke with him.
44:23: But a dear brother indeed. And I hope that if he is still with us on this earth, and by the way, his name is
44:31: John Thornberry. John Thornberry, I hope if he is still with us that I can have another time of fellowship and perhaps even an interview.
44:39: If anybody listening knows the current contact information for John Thornberry, please let me know.
44:46: So I'd like to contact him the last time I was aware of his place of residence. It was in Kentucky.
44:55: One question of my own is that even though, as you've already mentioned, there is definitely a divide.
45:04: In fact, I should say there are divides or divisions amongst 1689
45:11: Covenantal Reformed Baptists. They seem to be increasing, actually. We have divides over the how to interpret
45:20: God's impassibility. We now have differences over Thomistic theology.
45:29: And who knows where these are going to wind up in the future, how many divisions we'll have.
45:35: But when I was attending the John Bunyan conferences, there were divisions that actually seemed a lot more amicable than the divisions amongst
45:45: Covenantal guys. Because you even had dispensationalists in attendance claiming to be
45:51: New Covenant. If you could explain that, Blake. Well, which part, the amicability or dispensationalism?
46:03: The acceptance, it seems. I mean, well, let me put it this way. I got to back up a little bit. John Riesinger was very, very crystal clear that he was strongly opposed to dispensationalism.
46:15: But at the same time, there were always a reasonable number of attendees to the
46:23: John Bunyan conferences from dispensational camps. And they claimed to have a lot in common with New Covenant theology and even claimed in some measure to be
46:33: New Covenant theologians. But if you could address that. Yeah, yeah.
46:40: I think it all depends, right? We start talking, and John actually didn't talk a lot about Israel, but New Covenant guys, and I think across the board, there's unity within New Covenant theology about Israel.
46:55: And our dispensational friends obviously don't agree and can get feisty about it. But what we do agree on is the newness of the
47:02: New Covenant, both when it comes to changing the nature and structure of the Covenant community, but also on this new, fresh, unprecedented work of the
47:10: Spirit. The church started at Pentecost, basically. So there's a lot of agreement there.
47:16: And there's been some good work coming out of DTS, obviously. This is dated, but Lewis, what's his name?
47:25: Zach, maybe you can help me. Lewis Johnson? Yeah, Lewis Johnson. Oh, I had the privilege of sitting next to him at the lunch table at one of the
47:35: John Bunyan conferences years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there you go, obviously. But he appreciated it.
47:41: He had some good biblical theology. All Things New is another one. So some of it is progressive dispensationalism that would be more sympathetic, but some of it also is just trying to major on the majors.
47:50: I mean, I have friends that would come that were dispensational, and they would kind of understand where they are, and we would kind of just have good, fun jabs.
47:58: No one took themselves too seriously. We knew the differences mattered, but we also could come together and agree in an agreeable way, if that makes sense.
48:06: And some of that's John's, not only his personality, but his character, to be able to love one another through disagreement.
48:14: Seems like we forgot how to do that lately. Well, one of the things that's somewhat ironic is that you and your testimony were discussing how your first introduction to Sovereign Grace theology, a .k
48:32: .a. Reformed theology, was through Pato Baptists. And then you later came to be a
48:40: Baptist and a New Covenant theology advocate. I remember
48:45: John—excuse me, I have to mute myself to cough occasionally.
48:51: I remember John Reisinger always warning about, if you become a
48:59: Covenant theology advocate, it's only a matter of time before you become a Presbyterian.
49:06: So, he saw too much in common with the 1689 and Covenant theology in general amongst
49:17: Baptists, too much in common with Presbyterians, and he just thought that the divide was too fragile between the two groups.
49:28: But I have never felt any inclination on becoming a Pato Baptist.
49:33: But anyhow, even though I have dear friends who financially support the show that are. But tell us about how, in your opinion, the
49:45: New Covenant theology camp has a stronger argument against Pato Baptism. Yeah, yeah.
49:54: Well, first, I'd love to comment on John. I think he was kind of ahead of his time. I'd be curious. It doesn't sound like maybe not in your context,
50:00: Chris, or I'd be curious about Zach's. But it does seem like there are a lot of Baptists becoming
50:06: Presbyterian, just kind of in a general way. It seems like there's a lot of that happening.
50:13: And I do think Covenant theology is the route. So John might have been, you know, again, ahead of his time when it comes to that.
50:21: Rather than do the second London, go ahead and be consistent with the origin, which would be
50:26: Westminster. But anyway, that is interesting. I think he was right in some ways, certainly in my circles.
50:33: I've had a lot of Baptist friends become Presbyterian, but it really goes. I think the heart of it is, is the
50:40: New Covenant new or is it renewed? So we put a lot of weight on Jeremiah 31.
50:49: The New Covenant will not be like the old one. And he tells us in that passage on how. Well, in this case, all will know the
50:55: Lord. You won't say to one another within the community, know the Lord. All will know the Lord. All will have full and final forgiveness of sins.
51:01: All will have the law written on the heart. And again, this this new work of the
51:06: Spirit. So you have many prophecies in the Old Testament. Joel 2, Isaiah 32, 15,
51:13: Isaiah 44, 3, Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 39, 29, Ezekiel 11, 19.
51:19: Many, many, many promises that speak of a coming outpouring of the Spirit. In Numbers 11, 29,
51:25: Moses is lamenting. I wish that all of you had the Spirit. In the Old Covenant, the Spirit only operated on certain key leaders or prophets or priests or kings.
51:33: But the promise of the New Covenant is twofold. Full and final forgiveness of sins. Praise God, all evangelical systems agree to that and major on that and are founded on that.
51:44: But the second aspect of the New Covenant is a new, a changed community. So there's no longer a mixed community of some that are faithful, some that are unfaithful, some believers, some unbelievers.
51:56: But in the New Covenant community, all will know the Lord. In other words, they are the offspring of Jesus. And how do you become an offspring of Jesus, the covenant mediator?
52:04: Through faith. So we want to major on the newness of the New Covenant that changes the community.
52:11: And therefore, you only apply the sign to that community. Well, yeah.
52:17: And as a member of a covenant theology Reformed Baptist church,
52:22: I agree with every word of that. I disagree. In fact, I just recently had a friendly disagreement with a
52:31: Pato Baptist brother or brethren, plural, over that issue. I have never met a covenantal
52:38: Reformed Baptist that does not believe only the elect are in the covenant.
52:46: And we obviously as Baptists only baptize believers. Now, some of these believers may prove to be false converts, obviously, and you believe that as well.
52:57: And we have to we have to appropriately discipline them and possibly excommunicate them if they don't repent.
53:05: But I'm trying to find the area of disagreement in what you just said amongst covenant
53:13: Baptist. In fact, we'll have to do that after the midway break. Please try to respond to as many advertisers as you can, because they are the reason that we exist.
53:24: We are positively, absolutely dependent on the financial support of our advertisers to keep this program on the air.
53:31: And also send in your questions to Chris Arnson at Gmail dot com for our guests today. Don't go away.
53:37: We'll be right back. I'm Dr.
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54:03: It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim
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54:36: For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.
54:42: That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.
54:52: That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
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01:13:23: If you recall, Blake, before we went to the break, you were defining the
01:13:31: New Covenant theology understanding of the covenant and who is in the covenant.
01:13:37: And I couldn't disagree with any of these things. So I don't know if that's because I don't know my own theology,
01:13:43: I didn't hear you correctly, or I'm missing something. No, no.
01:13:49: Well, you had asked the difference between Pato Baptist, and so that's where I was focused. I didn't even know that I asked that because I thought that I asked you about the difference between New Covenant and covenant theology on that issue.
01:14:03: I'm sorry. Yeah, so between Baptist covenant theology and New Covenant theology, again, it's going to come down to the
01:14:11: Sabbath. One thing that is always helpful when we talk about Sabbath, sometimes
01:14:16: New Covenant guys can get accused of antinomianism or of not taking the assembly seriously.
01:14:22: And that is not at all the case. We define the Sabbath in terms of what Exodus 20 defines it.
01:14:28: So sometimes people just think obey the Sabbath just means go to church on Sunday. Well, that's not what the Bible says. It says work six days and rest on Saturday.
01:14:37: So we would not see any transfer theology from a Saturday to a Sunday. We would see freedom to be able to work.
01:14:47: In other words, not to have to work six days. We would still value, though, Sunday as the
01:14:52: Lord's day in terms of the resurrection. And I can speak at least for my church. I mean, if you're a member, we would ultimately discipline someone for not attending.
01:15:02: So it's not a matter of not taking corporate worship seriously. That's just not what the Bible is talking about with the
01:15:08: Sabbath commandment. Amen. And it is a tragedy, I'm sure both of you would agree, that ever since the hysteria created by COVID warnings and mandates by our government, that to this day there are people who discovered, wow,
01:15:31: I can still remain on my comfy couch on Sunday morning and watch the live streaming of the worship service at either my church or my favorite author or TV or radio speaker.
01:15:44: And they feel completely safe with God and they can feel completely free from a fear of any kind of discipline.
01:15:54: And I know people personally who have never returned to activity physically in the presence of their local congregation ever since then.
01:16:04: This is this is quite a tragedy, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you mentioned something before I go to another listener question.
01:16:18: You said, and I agree with you. I've always agreed with you that the accusation against New Covenant theologians of being antinomian is false.
01:16:30: In fact, I remember those early years, especially of developing friendships with many
01:16:38: New Covenant theology folks. In addition to the ones, the Covenant theology folks from my own congregation where I was a member and the circles we traveled in.
01:16:51: That there were stereotypes and slanderous remarks made by both sides of this divide.
01:17:01: And before I forget to say this, the church where I was saved and continued to be a member before I moved to Pennsylvania.
01:17:13: It started out as Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, but after a merger became
01:17:19: Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island. My pastors at those churches were always ecumenically minded enough, and I don't mean folks ecumenical in regard to joining in worship with apostate and false churches.
01:17:37: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about biblical ecumenism. But they were always humble enough, gracious enough, and ecumenically minded enough to have
01:17:47: New Covenant theology guys in our pulpit. We have had Tom Smith.
01:17:53: I don't know if you guys are familiar with. I believe the late Tom Smith in our pulpits and Tony Costa has been in our pulpits and other men of God from the
01:18:07: New Covenant theology camp. So I just wanted to throw that out there. But we have to be very careful, do we not?
01:18:15: And I'm sure because this is a
01:18:21: New Covenant concept as well. I'm sure you agree with that bearing false witness against your neighbor is still a sin.
01:18:29: And I think members of both camps have been guilty about this. We have to be very careful when we make accusations against those who disagree with us, don't we?
01:18:38: I can remember Covenant theology
01:18:44: Reformed Baptists saying those guys in the New Covenant camp believe you can live any way that you want to live and never repent and you'll still go to heaven.
01:18:53: And I knew that was false and I told them so. And New Covenant theology guys saying, you know that those
01:18:59: Covenant theology Reformed Baptists say that you've got to repeat the Ten Commandments every time you evangelize someone.
01:19:07: And that there was also charges of Judaizing or bordering on Judaizing that were made against Reformed Baptists.
01:19:20: But anyway, if you could respond to this care that we need to have when we are interacting.
01:19:29: Yeah, that's I mean, and I just see it considered basic. On the one hand, it's basic scholarship, good scholarship.
01:19:36: But it's also love of neighbor, whoever we're talking about. We want to represent the view fairly.
01:19:42: And I think all Christians, all pastors, all writers are going to strive really hard to do that. It is hard even in this short conversation.
01:19:49: And this actually is not a short conversation, but even here in a longer form interview to do justice to all the various nuances, both within Presbyterian Covenant theology, which we haven't even talked about those nuances, but also within our
01:20:02: Baptist Covenant theology friends. But then also diversity and nuance within New Covenant theology.
01:20:07: So it's hard to paint with a broad brush without being unfair to somebody. But at the end of the day, we have to do generalizations at some point.
01:20:14: We just want to do our best to make sure they're fair, fair and faithful. Yeah. And going back to the charge of antinomianism,
01:20:22: I know that every New Covenant theology advocate I know believes that we are obliged to obey not for salvation, of course, but the law of Christ.
01:20:36: And in actuality, you believe that nine of the Ten Commandments have been reintroduced into the
01:20:43: New Covenant by Christ. Am I misstating anything there? No, that's right. We just we wouldn't see, you know, every system of theology is wanting to be exegetically derived.
01:20:53: Right. We're all after that. New Covenant theology would not see any exegetical basis for a tripartite division of the law into those three categories of moral, ceremonial and civil.
01:21:04: But if you were to do that and say, well, moral laws, Ten Commandments, of course, nine of them are clearly repeated.
01:21:10: We would say that the Sabbath command needs to be run through that grid of Christ. And when we do that, we see that it's fulfilled in him.
01:21:17: And so now in the New Covenant to obey the Sabbath is to rest in Christ. But in terms of moral, moral imperatives, they are all over the place.
01:21:27: In fact, you know, there are 613 commands in the Old Covenant, but there are over 2000 imperatives in the
01:21:34: New Testament. And so we are very much for obeying everything Jesus commanded. Matthew 28.
01:21:41: Well, if you could, you mentioned something that you haven't really given us a lot of detail about.
01:21:50: Presbyterian New Covenant theology. This is something that is foreign to me. So if you could tell us about that.
01:21:57: I'm sorry, I may have misspoke what I meant. I'm trying to distinguish our Presbyterian Covenant theologian friends from our
01:22:03: Baptist. Oh, OK. I'm sorry that you are introducing to me a whole new category of people.
01:22:09: No, no, no, no. Well, let me go to another listener question.
01:22:18: We have Gracie in Seaford, Long Island, New York. And Gracie says there seems to be a difference between those in the
01:22:30: New Covenant theology camp where some still call themselves Reformed Baptists and others think that is a huge mistake.
01:22:38: If you could explain. Yeah, it's it's you know, the labels have gotten so murky.
01:22:44: Of course, I mentioned I love John Piper, but I kind of blame John Piper. John, you know, he uses reform so loosely.
01:22:53: Back in the 80s and 90s, even within our circles, within Baptist circles, it was a pretty clear difference between Reformed Baptist who held to the
01:23:02: Second London and then Sovereign Grace Baptist, which I've noticed you've been using that language. So Sovereign Grace Baptist would be someone who held to a different confession.
01:23:10: And basically, it was a way of distinguishing Covenant Theology Baptist from New Covenant Theology Baptist.
01:23:17: But now everyone just throws around the label Reformed, regardless of where you stand confessionally.
01:23:23: But I'm sympathetic to the brothers who want to keep the label tight and say you're not Reformed unless you hold to Second London.
01:23:31: Although we've got some Presbyterian friends say you're not Reformed unless you hold to Westminster. So I try to avoid that label myself to try to be nuanced to say
01:23:39: I'm not I'm not one of those. I do not hold to one of those two confessions. But the question is correct.
01:23:46: Technically, Reformed Baptist would be those who adhere to the 1689 confession. And a lot of the issue from what
01:23:53: I have seen is that you have churches that have retained their original name
01:23:59: Reformed Baptist because they began as 1689
01:24:05: London Baptist Confession churches. And then they later became New Covenant Theology. And they just never changed the name of the church.
01:24:11: I've seen that in certain circumstances anyway. Yeah. And, you know, we mentioned, you know, speaking of the
01:24:16: John Bunyan conference for years and years and years, it was held at Reformed Baptist Church, Lewisburg. Yes. And for the longest time,
01:24:23: I actually have lost contact with that church now. But, you know, they for my knowledge, they've never been Reformed Baptist.
01:24:29: They've always been New Covenant. And in fact, the newsletter that the
01:24:37: John Bunyan conference had originally, I can't I can't remember the exact title of the newsletter.
01:24:45: But the subtitle of the newsletter was a periodical of New Covenant Reformed Baptists.
01:24:53: I remember I remember that clearly that John named it that originally that was in the early 90s.
01:24:59: But but to comment on what you said about Sovereign Grace Baptist being a confessional
01:25:05: Reformed Baptist. And by the way, I don't think I squarely fit in that camp fully either.
01:25:12: But I have heard that term embraced by covenantal
01:25:17: Reformed Baptist ever since I was saved Sovereign Grace. So that that is why
01:25:23: I actually used it in the description of today's show, because of the commonality that we both believe in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.
01:25:33: So I don't know if you want to comment on that at all. Yeah, well, it's so that that was in the 80s and 90s away for guys like Al Martin would be
01:25:40: Reformed Baptist. And the guy like John's into John Riesinger would be a Sovereign Grace Baptist. But now there's since then we've had the development of the network of churches and music called
01:25:50: Sovereign Grace that I believe was started by C .J. Mahaney. If not, yeah. So all the labels now, they're all just so murky and muddled now.
01:25:59: Like my former one of my former pastors, Mark Ramoli. He is a confessional
01:26:05: Reformed Baptist. 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. And he's now pastoring a church in Greenbrier, Tennessee, Sovereign Grace Church.
01:26:15: So there you go. There you go. You just have to have a longer conversation. Well, I know that you have to leave in six minutes,
01:26:24: Pastor Blake. So if you could summarize what you most want, Ashton, the hearts and minds of our listeners about this subject today before you leave.
01:26:33: Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, what we want to do is derive our theology.
01:26:39: And this is in some ways a lifelong journey. We're always reforming. Right. Scripture is the norming norm. We always want to derive our theology from exegesis.
01:26:46: We value tradition, but we're Protestants. And so tradition, whether it's, you know,
01:26:51: Nicene or whether it's 1689, you know, we're always in where we go to scripture first.
01:26:58: Not scripture, not new to scripture or of a scripture. It's old to scripture. It's a norming norm.
01:27:03: And so when it comes to these conversations, that's kind of the question is what is most exegetically faithful. So always going to the
01:27:09: Bible to derive our theology and going to churches where the Bible is systematically taught.
01:27:15: Expositional preaching is vital. But also we want to keep Christ central and the best of all these circles do just that.
01:27:24: Historically, there's I think it's been a little bit different. But with with now sort of a gospel centrality, which that that that label also has baggage nowadays.
01:27:34: But keeping Christ central and all his fullness so that the end of the day, our churches are focused on Christ, not covenants, not law, not
01:27:42: Israel, but Christ. By the way, Alexander in Orlando, Florida, you asked a question that was already answered.
01:27:50: He asked, would both guests believe that only believers are in the new covenant? And, yes, they've already stated that.
01:27:58: So if you have another question, Alexander, fire it away. The Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com and we'll have
01:28:04: Zach Maxie, our final guest of the day, try to answer that question.
01:28:11: Well, I want to remind our listeners, even though we are going to be addressing this again about the next
01:28:19: John Bunyan conference. And perhaps we could have Zach this time repeat that information.
01:28:27: And as far as the website and the dates of that conference. Absolutely, Chris.
01:28:34: So the John Bunyan twenty twenty four conference will be held Sunday, April 14th to Wednesday, April 17th at Grace Covenant Church in Franklin, Tennessee.
01:28:47: And for the conference schedule, for description of the speakers, you can go to PTI in city dot org.
01:28:55: Again, it's just PTI, no spaces, no underscores, no dashes, PTI in city dot org.
01:29:02: Great. Well, please stick around, folks, because even though Pastor Blake White has to depart our program today, we still have about a half hour left with Zach Maxie.
01:29:16: And thanks a lot for joining us and squeezing us into your schedule, Pastor Blake.
01:29:23: Yes, Chris, thank you for ministry, man. Appreciate appreciate all you do. Zach, I'll see you soon, brother. All righty, folks.
01:29:30: Well, please, if you have a question for Zach Maxie, our final guest today, submit it to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com right away because we're running out of time.
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01:44:06: We're now back with my guest today, Zach Maxey. And Zach, I'd like you to really lay out what you believe are the most important things that should draw people into embracing
01:44:24: New Covenant theology. Are you still there? Yes, Chris.
01:44:31: So I want to echo some things that Blake said. So most systems, of course, well, all
01:44:41: Christian systems are motivated by a desire to correctly parse and understand and interpret the scriptures.
01:44:49: I would say in my own personal journey, because, what, four years ago when
01:44:55: I was on before the COVID happened, I doubt your listeners remember, but I'll just refresh.
01:45:02: So when I was saved, I was saved in a Presbyterian church, which was a really, it was kind of an amalgam, and the youth minister there who, one of them was a dispensationalist.
01:45:20: So it was in the context of a very liberal Presbyterian church, but nevertheless,
01:45:27: God uses many people to preach his word, and his servants come in all places.
01:45:35: And so the word was preached to me, and I was in a very, because I was hearing both dispensational ideas and then
01:45:41: Presbyterian ideas and then even some Reformed Baptist ideas. I don't want to say it was like,
01:45:49: I was in a very confused state, but if you spoke with me back then,
01:45:54: I probably wouldn't even recognize it. And then so I started my own journey trying to, you know, sift and interpret the scriptures as I felt the guidance of the
01:46:08: Holy Spirit. And so in a very similar way, when I first heard Calvinism and the doctrines of grace, there was a very strong distaste, and I opposed them.
01:46:21: And then in trying to investigate them deeper and deeper, I probably came to a form of Amaraldianism, is probably the best way to describe it.
01:46:33: And then once I heard— And that would be accurately summarized by the phrase, and I know that people disagree with this, but isn't that accurately, at least to a degree, summarized as four -point
01:46:45: Calvinism, an agreement with four of the points and a denial of definite atonement?
01:46:52: Yes, yes. And that was the point of the five that I had the most issue with.
01:47:00: And it was trying to kind of explain to a way the very simple yet profound biblical logic that you see manifested in the scriptures.
01:47:12: And then once I graduated from West Point, my wife and I both graduated from the military academy, I was stationed down at Fort Hood, Texas, and I came into the preaching of Dr.
01:47:22: Joe Kelly. And that was the first, as God would have it, providentially, when
01:47:29: I arrived, they were starting a series on the five solas, and then he immediately went into a series on the five points of Calvinism, and that was the first time
01:47:39: I had ever heard them preached. And God just flipped a light switch.
01:47:46: And then from that moment, for lack of a better term, I have held to the doctrines of grace.
01:47:54: And then that's where I came into contact with Dr. Gary Long, who's now in South Dakota.
01:48:00: He used to be the president of Providence Theological Seminary, where I graduated from. Yeah, I've met
01:48:07: Dr. Long at your conference, the John Bunyan conference, a couple of years ago.
01:48:12: And I have given away dozens and dozens of copies of his book, Definitive Tone. Yeah.
01:48:19: Yeah. And he's got plenty. He's got context, context, context where he's interacting with dispensationalists.
01:48:26: He's got a new and accurate way, which is a really good.
01:48:32: I wouldn't say it's on the level of being influential as John Riesinger's writings or even probably
01:48:38: Blake White's writings, but it's up there as a very good, concise summary of New Covenant theology.
01:48:47: And then that's really when I got to Killeen Bible Church and I heard the preaching of Joe Kelly. And then one of the elders who then became the pastor,
01:48:58: Brian Tom, who has since departed to be with the Lord. And then in Dr. Long, that's where I really got exposed to New Covenant theology.
01:49:09: And it gripped me in the way that not only did it try to acknowledge what it viewed to be the strengths of dispensationalism and covenant theology, but where it was willing to question both of those systems, where did they get this right?
01:49:30: And we think they did. And then is there an area where we could refine it?
01:49:36: And then so New Covenant theology has been called a via media or a middle way by some.
01:49:44: And to that, I would agree with that in a large estimate, generally speaking.
01:49:51: And so there are many aspects where NCT agrees with dispensational theology and many where it agrees with covenant theology.
01:50:00: But then there are some like, for example, what Blake said in terms of moral law, then, of course, you know, what is
01:50:10: Romans 9 to 11 speaking about with regards to a future for Israel?
01:50:15: Is that a premillennial kingdom where Christ is going to come down and literally reign from the throne of David?
01:50:23: And then there's going to be a rebuilt temple as dispensationalists would teach where both Israel and the church are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
01:50:31: But there are two separate eschatological destinies. And there were just elements of both that I think.
01:50:42: That NCT answers more. Biblically.
01:50:50: So so, for example, this briefly came up with regards to Israel when we're talking about dispensationalism.
01:50:56: But and I know some dispensationalism would take very much issue with this.
01:51:03: And and I've been accused of teaching that God breaks his promises.
01:51:09: God forbid. God forbid. It's not a question about theology proper because God is true.
01:51:17: God never breaks his word. The real question is hermeneutics. How are we supposed to understand those promises and the fulfillment of those promises?
01:51:26: And so and so we need to take it out of the in this this whole idea of being careful not to make false accusations.
01:51:35: It comes down to that. Well, am I am I appealing to theology proper in some ways to potentially manipulate or to accuse or to set up a theological straw man?
01:51:48: Or am I rightly noticing that this is a question of hermeneutics?
01:51:53: And so one of the big things that I teach my students,
01:51:59: I teach. I'm a secondary school teacher at Samuel Fuller School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, and I teach the high school
01:52:07: Bible classes. And so I teach biblical theology, systematics, then apologetics and then historical theology, not all in the same year.
01:52:15: But one of the big things that I come back to is a phrase that I came across in seminary that was very pivotal for me in learning to major in the majors, you know, and being able to disagree in the minors.
01:52:29: And that's it's by Rupert Mildenius. Sometimes it's attributed to Augustine, but it's in the essentials, unity and nonessentials, liberty and all things charity.
01:52:39: And I probably my classes, Chris, I probably see it ad nauseum. So my students and I'm trying to teach them.
01:52:48: It's OK. It's OK if we disagree over the mode of baptism.
01:52:54: It's OK if we disagree with on on eschatological matters. But do we agree on the essentials of the faith, the hypostatic union, the
01:53:03: Trinity, the inspiration of Scripture, justification by faith alone? Those things are the most important things.
01:53:10: And then once we agree on those things, we can we can agree to disagree. And then let's have, as Blake referred to earlier, let's have an in -house discussion and let's see.
01:53:20: Let's be constantly reforming our hermeneutics. And at least in to kind of circle back around to to your question,
01:53:28: I find in CT answers some of those. Areas a little better than both dispensationalism and covenant theology, whereas I think
01:53:39: I think so, for example, and I'll close with this just as an example. But with regards to the people of God and the plan of God, we would agree with covenant theology, both the
01:53:52: Presbyterian form and the 1689 form that there is one people of God. It's the elect of God from all ages.
01:54:00: Now, we would also agree with dispensationalism that there is that there are some elements of discontinuity.
01:54:08: So although you have that continuity of one people of God throughout all time, God's elect. There are elements of discontinuity that come along the way in the form of the covenants.
01:54:19: In fact, 1689ers would agree with that also, that we might not. They would. We may not explain it all exactly as you would, but we believe in that.
01:54:29: Yeah. And in fact, my my fellow elder and the pastor of my church, he's he's a 1689 or we'd get along just fine.
01:54:40: So so we actually had a long conversation probably two years ago on the law of God. And so I was explaining the
01:54:47: N .C .T. position where he was. He was holding a position where that Jesus is is essentially giving the the true interpretation of the law of Moses that has always been.
01:55:00: He's not adding anything new as a new lawgiver. He's just he's telling the true interpretation, whereas N .C
01:55:06: .T. folks would understand. Well, he's he's picking up where Moses left off, but he's a new lawgiver with authority.
01:55:14: So there there is a change in the law. And we would argue that it's it's it's taking the law to a higher.
01:55:23: Level that's unattainable apart from the spirit of God, indwelling and empowering a believer.
01:55:28: That which was the motivation of John Riesinger, John Riesinger's book. And but I say unto you.
01:55:35: Yeah. And so in that conversation, Pastor Steve, Pastor Steve Bailey said, well, we're arriving at the same place in ethics.
01:55:45: I'm like, yeah. And so he's like, well, what's the difference? I'm like, well, I mean, again, it's a hermeneutical issue.
01:55:51: And so at the end of the day, and that's probably I'm probably generalizing to a certain extent.
01:55:57: But but but we we essentially arrive at the same spot. We would explain it differently with regards to that.
01:56:03: I mean, the Sabbath, the Sabbath is its own issue with how we understand that and interpret it. But in terms of the other nine that Blake spoke of that appear again in the
01:56:13: New Testament, and one could argue that they're elevated in some sense.
01:56:18: So whether Jesus is giving the true understanding of Moses or he's elevating it as the new lawgiver, it's still arriving at that same position.
01:56:25: So it's no longer you don't commit adultery. It's you do not lust in your heart after someone else.
01:56:31: I have to ask. So I have to ask you quickly, though, because we're running out of time. What is your position on Israel?
01:56:36: Because when I attended the Bunyan conferences, there were differences among the speakers.
01:56:43: You had historical pre -mill guys who believed in a future fulfillment of Israel as being a part of biblical prophecy.
01:56:54: And you had those who denied that. So tell us. Yeah. So there's a difference among the
01:57:01: PTI NCT board. I would say my personal position and it's changed over the years.
01:57:08: But I would say the NCT position and most NCT folks hold this. I mean, there might be variations with our understanding of Revelation 20.
01:57:16: I tend to more of a non premillennial or if you want to call it an amillennial perspective. But I would hold that Israel has no future apart from the church.
01:57:26: And so when you look at passages like Ephesians 2, Christ came to make the two one and to tear down the wall of hostility and make a new man out of Jew and Gentile.
01:57:37: So it's elect you and elect Gentile. And but but at the same time,
01:57:42: I would say Romans 11 is talking about a future in gathering. So there are some folks in the reformed community that would hold that it's all of the
01:57:50: Jews saved throughout all time or it's that or it's this final end time in gathering, which dispensationalists tend to hold.
01:57:59: But those who come out of like I also consider myself coming out of dispensational circles to a certain degree.
01:58:04: But I would also hold that there's an end time in gathering of Jews, but it's going to be into the church, the body of Christ.
01:58:11: Yes. And I would agree with that. So, by the way, we're out of time. Please give not only the Web site for your church, but also once again, where our listeners can find the details for the
01:58:22: John Bunyan conference. Yes. So the details of the
01:58:28: John Bunyan conference can be found at P .T. I .N .C .T. dot org. Again, that's
01:58:33: P .T. I .N .C .T. dot org. There's there's bios about the speakers. There's the conference schedule. There's also a
01:58:39: T -shirt that we're promoting for fundraising and so forth. There's no official charge for the conference.
01:58:45: But as the Lord leads to donate, we certainly welcome that. And also
01:58:50: Grace Covenant Church. So that Web site is Grace Covenant Church R .I.
01:58:57: dot com. And for those of you who want the information on the church where Dr.
01:59:03: Blake White is the pastor, go to S .S. Baptist dot org. That's for South Side Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas.
01:59:11: S .S. Baptist dot org. And you can also go to Dr. Blake White's personal
01:59:18: Web site. And that is and I had it right in front of me and it's gone.
01:59:24: Is that a Blake White dot? Do you know? I believe that's right. They Blake.
01:59:29: But what is the dot or com? I think it's I think it's dot org. A Blake White dot org.
01:59:35: I hope that's right. And by the way, folks, I made a faux pas. I should never talk about somebody passing away unless I know if it's certain.
01:59:44: I confused two different New Covenant theology guys that both preached at the church where I was a member years ago.
01:59:51: Tom Smith is still alive. He's now an Anglican, however, a Calvinistic Anglican.
01:59:58: But Tom Wells is the brother that I was thinking of that I believe passed away. I'm not 100 percent certain, but he was the pastor of the
02:00:07: King's Chapel in Westchester, Ohio, for many years. But I want to thank everybody for listening today.
02:00:14: And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.