August 13, 2024 Show with Dr. Gerald R. McDermott on “A New History of Redemption: The Work of Jesus the Messiah through the Millenia”

Opening Broadcast and Show Introduction

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 13th day of August, 2024.

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So we hope to see you Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. I also wanted to let you know that not long before the show began, I was on the phone with my longtime friend, Phil Johnson, who is the Executive Director of John MacArthur's Media Ministry, grace to you.

As many of you know, Phil is battling blood cancer, and he is going through some treatments that, as he put it in his own words, make him feel like he was hit by a truck. He has to have numerous injections in his stomach every week, and it's not chemotherapy, but I think it's called biotherapy or something like that, but he wanted me to give you an update that he is optimistic, waiting for a bone marrow transplant, which involves his own bone marrow, and he is very appreciative of the prayers of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

Listeners.

So continue to pray for my dear friend, Phil Johnson. We look forward to having Phil back on the program, and he can let us know what God has taught him perhaps during this trial in his life, which is no doubt a frightening trial.

Guest Introduction and Salvation Testimony

But today I am having a first-time guest in the program. I always love having first-time guests on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. His name is Dr. Gerald R. McDermott, who served for five years as the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Samford's Beeson Divinity School and 26 years teaching undergraduates at Roanoke College in Virginia, and we are going to be addressing his latest book, his 25th book, A New History of Redemption, The Work of Jesus the Messiah Through the Millennia.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, Gerald McDermott.

Well, thank you so much, Chris. It's my privilege to be on your show.

Well, praise God for that. Well, as you know, as I related to you before the show, we have a tradition on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of his or her salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and the kinds of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them, and we would love to hear your story.

Well, Chris, as I was telling you before we went on the air, you and I have somewhat of a similar background. I was raised Roman Catholic up in the Northeast, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. I went to a Jesuit high school in New York City on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

And when I was 18, a revival came to my parents' Catholic church outside of Chicago. While I was still in high school, I stayed to complete high school in New York City. And so hundreds of Catholics, you know, became born again, and this Catholic church became a center for a revival.

And many Protestants came and also got turned on to Jesus, and it was the Catholic charismatic movement at the time. And that's where I had my first personal encounter with Jesus, despite having, you know, gone to mass for 18 years and gone through theology class four times a week for four years at my Jesuit high school in New York City.

So that caused me, now I was at the time a freshman at the University of Chicago, and so it caused me, and so this was in the spring of my freshman year at the University of Chicago. So I changed my major from psychology to New Testament early Christian literature, joining the one other student in the whole college.

The college had 2 ,000 students, and the grad schools at the university had 4 ,000, and there were only two of us who were majoring in New Testament early Christian literature, and we took all of our classes in the major at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, which is probably the most anti-Christian place to study divinity in the country.

And I was thrown into classes, and plus I was a terrible stutterer. So I was thrown in, and I basically couldn't talk in public. And I was thrown into class with men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. There were no women in, you know, this was 1971.

I started in 1970. And with men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. And it was post-Bultmanian, you know, a Bultman denied the bodily resurrection of Christ. And the theology that I was taught in these classes was even to the left of Bultman.

So I, you know, by the grace of God, I completed the major. I completed my bachelor's degree, and it really was a trial of fire. With liberalism. And I discovered, I got into InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the University, started going to a Baptist church there in Hyde Park.

And then when I graduated, I joined a Christian commune. And it was with Baptist theology, basically charismatic. And met my wife there, and we got married. And we spent our first year of marriage on the border of Mexico.

Serving in a little Christian commune on a farm. Just 12 miles from the Mexican border at the bottom of the Rio Grande Valley. So way, way down at the bottom of Mexico. And then, and I ran their little Christian school.

And then after that, we went up. So from the tropics to the Arctic, we went to Fargo, North Dakota. Where this same group called Daystar had bought an old hotel in downtown Fargo. And 200 of us lived in community, Christian community there.

And I also got involved in running the Christian school. And then my wife and I left the charismatic communes. And we started a Christian school in Moorhead, Minnesota. Which is right across from Fargo, North Dakota.

And that's still going strong today. Big, big school. K through 12 mil. And then after three years of running that new independent Christian school. I left to pursue a PhD at the University of Iowa. And while, and I was there five years full time doing a PhD.

In Jewish and Christian thought. And did my dissertation on Jonathan Edwards. His public theology, which became my first book. And during that time, Chris, you might be happy to know that I became a Baptist preacher.

Hallelujah. And so I was preaching Baptistic theology. And preaching against all those crazy Anglicans. And all sorts in sacraments, which are really only ordinances. And so I was a Baptist preacher for five years there.

And then at the end of my PhD, after five years at Iowa. I got a job at Roanoke College. And I taught there for 26 years, as you mentioned. And while there, I became an Anglican. And that was about 35 years ago.

I became an Anglican. And over the course of time, became an Anglican priest. First an Episcopal priest. With the illusion of converting the Episcopal church to something that was Orthodox. But after a while, I was dispelled of that utopian vision.

You viewed yourself as a modern-day Martin Luther, I'm assuming.

Yes.

Except in an Episcopalian context.

Yes. In the Episcopal context. Trying to save the Episcopal church. A whole bunch of us evangelicals back then were trying to do that. But we soon discovered it was a losing effort. And so I switched my credentials to the Anglican church of North America.

Which had broken away from the Episcopal church. Because of its heresies over marriage and sexuality, among other things. So, I'll stop there. That's a little...

Well, I would love to hear a little bit about the commune. What exactly was going on in the commune? Was it... Did it resemble anything that might be considered cultic? As far as restrictions? Freedoms of entering and leaving?

I don't know of anyone else who has... That I'm aware of, anyway. That has been in a Christian commune. Was it theologically orthodox? And so on. Tell us some more about that.

It was basically theologically orthodox. It wasn't cultic in any of those senses. Where, you know, you were not allowed to leave and so forth. You know, it had its theological problems, as I look back.

But nothing cult-like. And I'm thankful for those years there. I learned much. And yet... And it was kind of fun. Because there were so many of us who were in our 20s. And we were married couples and having kids.

And we were all doing it together. And we had no money. It was the kind of community that said we should not ask for money. Which, looking back, I'm glad for that. Because it taught us really to trust the word for finances.

Now, the one at the bottom of Texas, down by the Mexican border. It was a big farm with 400 orange and grapefruit trees. And cows and pigs and chickens. And we ministered to missionaries going down to and coming up from Mexico.

So that was our primary purpose. To give them some R &R. And the hotel up in Fargo. We were there as a witness in downtown Fargo. But mostly, we put on conferences for unbelievers. And also for believers in all sorts of topics.

To help them to go deeper. And we provided refuge for a lot of people back in the 70s. Who were going through alcohol abuse, drug abuse, family breakdown. A lot like today. And they would come and stay with us.

And get their lives back together. But a lot of the people in the hotel went out and worked full-time jobs to bring money in. You know, my job was to work in the school and help run their school.

Anglicanism, the 39 Articles, and the Ordination of Women

Well, you've already mentioned that you had arrived in your theological journey as an Anglican. Although I may be getting teary-eyed that you left my fellow Baptist background. But can you tell us what kind of an Anglican you are?

Because as you know, Anglicanism is multifaceted from the good and the bad and the ugly. And there are those that are Anglo-Catholic. There are those that are very rigidly Arminian. And there are those that are strongly theologically Reformed.

With some of whom have very little difference than my own beliefs as a Reformed Baptist. And those are typically men who adhere to the 39 articles of religion. So where are you in the spectrum of Anglicanism?

Well, first of all, the world wide.

Well, yeah.

First thing I'll say is that Anglicanism is divided right down the middle. As every other church in the world is. You know, Chris, Baptists are divided down the middle between progressives and what we would call Orthodox.

Right?

Catholics are divided down the middle between the progressives and the Orthodox. So to the Reformed. You know, look at the PCUSA. So to Anglicanism.

On the far left.

And the super progressives is the Church of England and the Episcopal Church. You know, we've been there. We've done that. We're moving on. So on the Orthodox side and these days, well, in the Anglican world.

Well, so too in the Baptist world and so forth. We tended to define Orthodoxy as anti-progressive on marriage and sexuality. First and foremost.

Right?

We don't believe in gay marriage. And we don't believe in all the crazy pansexualities out there that are promoted. By all sorts of Christians and all these different progressive sides of their churches.

So I'm in the Anglican Church, North America. The acronym is ACNA. As I said before, we split off from the Episcopal Church and started back in about. Gee, what year was that? 2000. I want to say 2008, but I'm probably wrong.

But and so those of us in the Anglican Church of North America and also GAFCOM, the Global Fellowship of Anglicans centered in Africa. Where a majority of Anglicans live today. Far more than in the global north.

And in what's called the Global South Anglican Fellowship. Now, I told you I was a stutterer and I still am a stutterer. And in fact, one of my books is called Famous Stutterers. Twelve famous stutterers from Moses to Marilyn Monroe.

I didn't know that about Marilyn.

Oh, yeah, she was a terrible stutterer to the day she died.

Wow.

Yes.

And she went and just a little aside, Chris, when they when when Hollywood first realized that this Marilyn Monroe, her real name was Jean something was going to be big for them. But they also realized she had a terrible stutter and they sent her to a speech therapist at Hollywood and the speech therapist said, Marilyn, this is what you have to do.

You have to whenever you speak, you have to slow down and speak in a real breathy manner. Let that become your breathy trademark. And that's, of course, how Marilyn Monroe speak spoke. And that was because of her stuttering therapy.

Wow.

But so so on on the Orthodox side of marriage and sexuality, we Anglicans are basically divided into two main groups. The first group are what are what are called Reformation Anglicans. And the second group are what I call Reformed Catholic Anglicans.

Now, the Reformation Anglicans are focused on basically three decades in the 16th century. And Thomas Cranmer is their theologian.

Yes. One of my heroes as well.

And they say that all of Anglicanism goes back to those three decades and they tend to be much more evangelical. So, for instance, they they reject things like baptismal regeneration. They reject the the the real presence of the body and blood of Christ on the communion table.

They will talk about a spiritual presence. They believe in the authority of the individual to interpret the Bible. But, of course, they accepted 39 articles, as we do also. Now, those of us on the Reformed Catholic side of Anglicanism, we look at not just three decades in the 16th century, but we say that Anglicanism is 2000 years old.

It did not start in the 16th century, that there's always been a a distinctively English way that in fact for hundreds of years before the 16th century was anti-Rome. They always had a hard time with Rome.

But the distinctively English way of being Catholic, we look at the first millennium of the undivided church and the teachings of the fathers. And we talk not about the authority of the individual to interpret the Bible, but that we should read the Bible at the feet of the fathers, and we should learn from the fathers the patristic consensus how to interpret the Bible.

So, we do teach baptismal regeneration, and we do believe in the real body, in the real blood of Christ on the communion table or on the altar, in, with, and under the bread and the wine.

Just like the Lutheran tradition.

Very similar to, not identical to, but very similar to. And we look at Cramer as a brilliant liturgist, but not the foremost Anglican theologian. The 16th century, Richard Hooker was the premier Anglican theologian of the English Reformation.

Jonathan Edwards, the History of Redemption, and the Meaning of "New"

And, well, we're going to be entering into the discussion on your book that is the highlight of our program today, A New History of Redemption. And we are going into our first commercial break right now.

If anybody would like to join us with a question for my guest, Jerry McDermott, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

And this first commercial, I'm sure that my guest Jerry is going to immediately recognize the brother in Christ doing the voiceover for it, because he's already told me before the show that he is a mutual friend of my very dear friend Roger Salter, a Reformed Anglican in Birmingham, Alabama.

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We're now back with my guest, Gerald R. McDermott, and we are going to be discussing his new book, A New History of Redemption, The Work of Jesus the Messiah Through the Millennia. And let me just read a couple of endorsements, very powerful endorsements, one of which is written by someone who's been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a number of times, Dr. Carl Truman of Grove City College.

McDermott is well known as a Jonathan Edwards scholar. Now he has stepped into the role of updating the great theologian's work by offering his own account of the history of redemption. But this is no mere rehash of Edwards.

Instead, McDermott's work, I'm sorry, McDermott works to bring out the astounding beauty of redemption a much neglected category in Protestantism for a new generation, a very encouraging volume. And also Oz Guinness, whose name should not be unknown to most of our listeners, audacious, sweeping, magisterial, and highly distinctive at a moment in history when understanding the global is essential.

McDermott gives us both a deep history and a wide-ranging global view of God's restoration of the world that expands our minds and enriches our faith. Fascinating reading. And there are many other commendations from prestigious individuals as well.

But the title, as I just read before, is A New History of Redemption. And sometimes the word new, when in connection to theology and an understanding of scripture in general, can greatly concern, alarm, and even frighten Christians from my background of staunch confessional Calvinism and pneumatological cessationism.

So can you explain your use of the word new in your title so that many of the theological kinfolk that I have listening.

Might be put more at ease? Sure, Chris. Jonathan Edwards, well, people who are familiar with Jonathan Edwards know that he gave a famous sermon series on the history of redemption in 1739 that was later published after he died as A History of Redemption.

That was the title of it. And it's in the, I have the 26 published print volumes of the works of Jonathan Edwards on my shelf behind me. And this is volume nine. And it's a much read, much cited book in the corpus of Jonathan Edwards books, A History of Redemption.

Now, Jonathan Edwards was intending to revise it and turn it into a major summa, such as Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. And Jonathan Edwards' goal, his intent, the aim of his life, and he wrote about it in the last second of his life, was to take the history of redemption and just use those sermons as an outline for a future major work that would incorporate all the world cultures, all world history, all the world religions, to show how through all of that mess and incredibly complex and in many times dark history of the world, starting from Eden, and in fact starting, you know, he was a Reformed theologian.

I think the greatest of all Reformed theologians. He was a Calvinist. And therefore, starting before the creation in the councils of eternity, Jesus was acting as Messiah, redeeming the world, all the way up until the Eschaton, the new heavens, the new earth.

Now, Jonathan Edwards never got to do what he was hoping to do.

Died at a young age.

He died at his intellectual prime, the age of 54, before his 55th birthday. And you know what he.

Died of, Chris? That's something to do with the vaccine, I know. He died of the side effects of.

A vaccine. I always like to say that, especially post-COVID. He died of the side effects of a vaccine. So. Was that for smallpox or? Yes. Okay. Yes. So, in my hubris, I decided to finish what Edwards was not able to finish.

Wow. And so this book, as you know, because you've got a copy of it and you've read it, you know, it goes through all the history of the world. Well, not all the history of the world, not every aspect of every part of the history of the world, but it goes through biblical history, starting with the creation and the plans for the creation, and goes all the way up through Old Testament history, all the way through the last 2 ,000 years of church history.

And then it spends the last few chapters talking about the eschaton, the final judgment, what that's going to be like, the new heavens and the new earth. Well, what are they? And whether or not there's a millennium.

And as you know, well, you were probably happy with what I wrote about the millennium. So, now you asked if, Chris, you asked in your question about his staunch confessional Calvinism and pneumatological cessationism.

Now, Edwards, and you probably know this because as a Reformed Baptist, you probably know a lot about Jonathan Edwards, that he was an infralapsarian. He was not a superlapsarian. And Michael McClymon and I put out a giant book published by Oxford University Press about 12 years ago, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, about 800 pages.

And we cover in much detail his, I would say every aspect of his theology, including the debate between superlapsarianism and infralapsarianism. And we write, in fact, I wrote that chapter, that he was an infralapsarian.

In other words, he did not believe that God's first decision logically, of course, all of God's decisions for the future of the world were made in eternity outside of time. And so, there's no temporal sequence, but there's a logical sequence that Reformed theologians have always written about.

And Jonathan Edwards wrote quite a bit about the logical sequence of his steps in thinking through the history of redemption and thinking through the history of creation, and even thinking about the idea of creating intelligent beings known as angels and human beings.

And so, he said, in disagreeing with superlapsarians, that God did not make an initial decision to consign a good portion of his future human creations to hell and a good portion of his future human creations to heaven.

No. Logically, so he did not start by damning some to hell. But in the order of the decrees, and those who are Reformed in your audience know about the divine decrees, in the logical order of his decrees, God determined first to shine forth his glory and communicate his goodness.

That was his first decision in the logical order of his decrees. Then his decrees of evil, and that's actually, those are Jonathan Edwards's words, his decrees of evil to punish the wicked, were after, logically, his decrees to create all human beings and to give them permission to sin.

And it was logically only after he saw that most would depart from him and reject his offer of salvation, that he issued his decrees about damnation, but for the purpose of his glory. Not because he gloryed in damnation, but because he gloried in his own glory.

Now, even infralapsarians, even taking what you are describing the view to be, they are not those that are part of a heretical movement that is in existence today, where God does not know the future. This didn't come as some kind of surprise to God.

Oh, of course not. No, this is all his, these are all his decrees in eternity, so he knows everything about the future. He's creating the future. So no, no, that's that.

Those, those, those folks. Open theists, they're known as, the heretical group.

Yeah, yeah. Open theists are the furthest thing from reformed Calvinists. All reformed Calvinists believe that God has omniscience, which means he knows everything, and that includes the future. So, so Edwards, you know, just to finish that thought, wrote that God desires the conversion of the reprobate, of all reprobates, and he laments their obstinacy.

Now he knows that they will be obstinate, and they will reject his offer of salvation, and he laments that. Now, and Edwards goes on to say, in commenting on Ephesians 1 .5, that, that, that God predestined all for his good pleasure.

He says, God's good, good pleasure in his decrees was rational, not arbitrary. Now, now, we don't know this side of heaven. This side of eternity. What the reasons were for damning some, well, we know what his reasons for damning were, sin, sin, and, and decisions by the damned to reject God and his good offer of truth, beauty, and goodness.

But we don't know his reasons for, for choosing some for, for election, for salvation. But they were not arbitrary, as Edwards said. Now, many hyper-Calvinists and, and super-Labsyrians will suggest, or even say that they were absolutely arbitrary.

That was not Edwards. Now, on pneumatological cessationism, you asked, Chris, uh, well, there's no cessation of the Holy Spirit, because Edwards is, is a thorough theologian of the Holy Spirit. Oh, of course.

And he's known for that. But of the charismatic gifts, yes, he did believe in the cessation of the charismatic gifts with the close.

Of the apostolic age. Yes. Okay. And I know that the role of Israel in redemptive history is at the core of this 25th book of yours, which makes the release of this volume very timely, because as you know, and anybody listening who watches television knows, we're living in a day when, very recently, anti-Semitism has become extremely popular, especially among college-age folks who have horrified onlookers globally as we witness their public protests, which seem to mimic the rhetoric of Islamic extremists and even neo-Nazi rallies.

But this new work of yours is so thoroughly researched, I assume it was already in the process of development years before it recently came into print. What originally compelled you to put pen to paper on this topic?