September 16, 2016 Show with Jamin Hubner on “Mishandling the Word of Truth: A Critique of Hyperdispensationalism”

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 16th day of September 2016.

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And some of you are listening and scratching your heads, wondering why there's no theme music behind me right now. That's because we have some kind of an unforeseen technical problem occurring right now.

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And hopefully, it will be rectified during this program so we can air commercials.

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But if not, we will just press forward nonetheless. And we will hopefully gain a lot of insight from today's interview.

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Today, we have returning to the program Dr. Jamin Huebner, founding chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College.

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And he is going to be discussing something outside of what one might expect.

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Those of our listeners who know Dr. Huebner may immediately connect him with Christian libertarianism and political theory and so on.

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But today, we are discussing a theological matter. We are discussing a book he has written titled

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Mishandling the Word of Truth, a critique of hyper -dispensationalism.

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And I'd like all of you who have questions on this issue to contact us with a question at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. You may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. Perhaps you're bringing up a question where you have a disagreement with your own church or some other issue that would compel you to remain anonymous.

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We will honor that request if you just tell us to do that. And that's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

02:14

Jamin Huebner. Well, thank you, Chris, for inviting me for a second time.

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I guess that means I didn't fail the first time. So I look forward to this discussion.

02:28

Yeah, I do too. And let's get some terms clarified here.

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First of all, I want my listeners know, especially my dispensationalist listeners to know that I'm not tagging a hyper description onto your beliefs or where you're not really putting your views of theology and eschatology under the limelight, necessarily, although it will come up.

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This is a discussion on hyper dispensationalism. And most dispensationalists that I know, love, and respect, like John MacArthur and even one of the sponsors of this very program,

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Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church, who shares my Calvinism, but we disagree over his dispensationalism.

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But even folks like that would normally be very find very problematic those who espouse hyper dispensationalism.

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And we're going to have some definitions here at the outset. So before we go into what hyper dispensationalism is, obviously, we should know what is dispensationalism.

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Yeah, and saying what you just said, it's always a precarious situation, kind of summarizing other people's theology.

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But when I teach in the classroom, that's what I have to do. I have to teach what Roman Catholics and Muslims and others believe.

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It's just something I have to deal with. So it may not be up to everybody's satisfaction, but you're right that, yeah, to get into the discussion, we kind of have to know what dispensationalism generally is.

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Yeah, because there are disagreements, even amongst dispensationalists. Most definitely. And there's a lot of different versions.

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There's kind of the, you might say, the historic Darbyists.

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John Nelson Darby was an Irish preacher in the 1800s and kind of laid out a little bit this system of redemptive history in terms of how

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God works in different epochs. And that was not unique. I mean, all Christians have some kind of understanding of this internal framework in redemptive history.

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But his particular contribution was a pretty stark distinction between Israel and the

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Church. And that was kind of carried on by Moody and C .I.

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Schofield, and with Schofield in particular with his really popular study Bible and his own sort of spin on it, dispensationalism became really popular in America.

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And of course, Moody Bible Institute was founded. And its statement of faith explicitly says the

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Church is a distinct entity from Israel. So that's confessionally retained in those types of institutions.

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And then from the 40s and 50s, you have different groups and applications, especially with the interpretation of the two world wars.

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And ultimately, the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel in 48, all these things come to bear and start to create new interpretations and spins.

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And one particular group is what we would say are ultra or hyper -dispensationalists in that period.

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And their kind of discontent was, we're not being dispensational enough.

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We don't see the distinctiveness of the Apostle Paul. That was kind of a big thing.

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Meaning those outside of their camp don't understand the Apostle Paul. Sure, you could put it that way.

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But they saw themselves as carrying on the work of Moody and Schofield and others.

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But you're right. Eventually, they became sort of sectarian and had their own set of publications and even higher educational institutions, college, seminary, which still exist to this day.

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And so anyway, yeah, the distinctiveness of the Apostle Paul and some other things, practically speaking, is a denial of all forms of water baptism, water baptized, infants or adults or anyone.

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And a lot of language that's,

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I guess we could say, manipulated or at least misused, both theologically and from the

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New Testament. And like, for instance, saying that there's two gospels in the

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New Testament scriptures. Jesus and Peter kind of taught a more works -righteous salvation.

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But in the dispensation of grace, this real distinctive epoch and mark in history of the

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Apostle Paul from straight revelation reveals the gospel of grace.

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And this is kind of where we are today, is in this dispensation of grace.

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And it's so distinct, in fact, that a person really cannot, you'd say, become a

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Christian by listening to the words of Christ or the Apostle Peter. They have to conform and absorb the particular and distinctive system of the

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Apostle Paul. Right, well, where they are actually, though, wouldn't you agree, misunderstanding the theology of Apostle Paul?

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Because they pit it against Jesus and Peter, which actually, there never was a wall between them.

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Yeah, I do think it is a misunderstanding. And I'm not, however, like some

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Christians in American evangelicalism that refuse to talk about Pauline theology or John's theology or Luke and writings.

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I do think there is a legitimate way of talking about the distinctive perspectives of New Testament authors and the distinctive views and theological perspectives they embody.

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I do think it can be unified, but there's still a legitimate way of talking about those distinctive things.

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It's just that in this case, it's like you said, it's almost antagonistic, and there's an anticipate.

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Right, well, this would be where you have Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry proclaiming one gospel just for a handful of years, really, and then you have

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Paul arriving on the scene not long after the death of Stephen, coming to faith in Christ after being a fire -breathing

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Pharisee wanting to kill Christians. He comes to faith, and then all of a sudden after just that comparative handful of years of Jesus on this earth and his earliest disciples, all of a sudden

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Paul comes up with a new gospel that we're supposed to follow? It seems to me unbelievable that people would have this view.

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Well, it does seem strange on the surface in just sketching it. There is a rhyme and reason to it.

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I obviously disagree with it. I wrote a whole book showing how this would work, but they have their schematic and their logic behind it of how this works out and why we see it in these things.

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And so it becomes really complicated, and as I said in the preface of the book, it's one of the hardest books

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I've ever read, and it's just very kind of convoluted and like untangling a ball of barbed wire because of really the problems in language that occur.

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And I was just thinking and rereading parts of it for the show today that if I had to go back and revise it for a third edition,

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I would add a new chapter or at least revise it in light of just what's happening with language.

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And so I think if I could really summarize one of my biggest concerns and criticisms, it would be that I just don't think hyperdispensationalists in this perspective quite understand how language works.

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And this is not solely directed toward their theology. I think a lot of theologians don't know how language works.

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And what, you know, what the... I mean, we learn these things in high school, like what is a metaphor?

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You know, what is literal language and interpretation, different things. But in the fog of theological war and different things, they tend to get kind of covered up or not qualified very well.

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So, and this is particularly true with regard to the language of the

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Church and talking about what a Christian is or how we identify

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Christians and talking about the community of believers in the New Covenant community, because we're talking about a

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Jewish environment in the first century. And so they work within a paradigm and a language from Judaism.

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And so, you know, sometimes theologians in the early Church, like Paul and John, they'll invent new terms.

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You know, they'll say body of Christ instead of Israel, but sometimes they'll use the old term, race, holy nation, as Peter does, and other things like that.

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So that's what I think really complicates the things is using terms in different ways. Now, you mentioned earlier that one of the hallmarks of hyper -dispensationalism is that they do not believe in the perpetuity of baptism, of any kind of water baptism, that is.

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And would that also coincide with the Lord's Supper? Because I thought that I had met some hyper -dispensationalists that did not practice the

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Lord's Supper. I guess I didn't focus too much on that, and I'm not sure what the practice is necessarily.

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They're definitely more vocal on the baptism issue. And yeah, that sets the movement apart pretty distinctively in terms of identifying, you know, what group this is.

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And part of the reason I wrote the book is because one of the leading, like if you say apologists or promoters of hyper -dispensationalism was preaching at my hometown church.

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And I was sort of confused about these emphases on gospel of grace and Paul and different things.

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Then I come to realize, oh, I see, you know, several years later in researching this, what was really going on.

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But it really, you know, that really blends in, and I don't think anyone else in the church ever, you know, was aware of that.

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And so that's kind of what led me to, it's that confusion that led me to want to address it.

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But yeah, the baptism issue makes it a little more clear that there's something pretty distinctive going on.

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And I don't know, to be consistent would, you know, would you say that there shouldn't be any form of that sacrament or ordinance at the

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Lord's table? That might be the case, but I guess that's a particular corner

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I haven't dug into very much. Okay, we do have a question already from Ada, Ohio.

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David, who says, can you make a distinction between hyper and enthusiastic?

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Because some people may think that a hyper -dispensationalist is somebody who's just really excited about it, or drinks a lot of coffee, or what have you.

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But, and people obviously make the accusation about a

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Calvinist, a historic Calvinist, I would consider myself in that category, because I believe that the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith is an accurate, although not inerrant, summary of biblical truth.

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And I also have a great high regard for the other historic creeds of the

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Reformed faith, like the Westminster Confession, like the Savoy Declaration, like the 39

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Articles of Religion from the Anglican Church, like the Three Forms of Unity from the

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Dutch Reformed Church. But there are people who despise those teachings, who would call a person a hyper -Calvinist, even though he really is faithfully following the theology that had been handed down for the centuries.

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Obviously there have been differences amongst these great men of God from the past and present.

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But they call us hyper -Calvinists just because we believe in Calvinism, and want to talk about it, because we actually bring it up in sermons, and actually discuss unconditional election, and particular redemption, and other things that drive them crazy, and so therefore they tag a hyper onto us.

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But hyper -dispensationalism, you're not just saying somebody who's really excited about it, correct? Right, it is a qualitative difference, and not just, yeah, like we're so happy about these.

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I mean, I do know the type of people you're describing, and I guess I might call them hyper -dispensationalists by their way too excited about buying products from the

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State of Israel, and different things. So anyway, yeah, that's not what's going on here, but yeah, again, we're back to language, and using terms that are used, that yeah,

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I remember, you know, Ergen Kanter, and other contemporary public figures in evangelicalism who have used that term, hyper -Calvinism, in a way that isn't very accurate.

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But yeah, I delineate that pretty early on in the book, what I mean by that, and it's, yeah, it's not just having a six -shot latte in the morning.

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And, oh, by the way, David, you are actually getting a free copy of our guest's book,

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Mishandling the Word of Truth, A Critique of Hyper -Dispensationalism. So thanks for sending in your question, and our email address for anybody else who has a question is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and we look forward to hearing from more of you.

18:59

Isn't one of the things that the hyper -dispensationalists teach, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not an expert on it, like I haven't studied it as thoroughly as you have,

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I've just experienced people, not only in person who I've met, but even radio preachers who would be in this category, one of the things they seem to be doing is actually teaching that Jesus and the

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Old Testament saints were declaring that works were an essential meritorious factor in achieving salvation, and that Paul was the first one on the scene to revolutionize and change and transform the gospel where it became a salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, is that an accurate description?

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I think it actually is, and yeah, I wouldn't really even qualify it that much because reading the quotations and the different summaries from the primary sources of hyper -dispensational works, whether it's

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Joel Fink or Charles Baker, or O 'Hare, or Stam, or the authors like that, they basically say that it's, yeah,

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I mean, I think you summarized it really well, and my way of sort of deconstructing that framework is in looking at what is common in human relationship with God throughout the

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First and Second Testaments, and I find three, I mean, this is sort of a research thing where a lot of times

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I'll sort of default to, if I'm kind of lazy or I don't feel like I need to research too much,

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I'll just default to maybe a synthesis of views of a couple people or systematic theologies

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I generally lean with. In this case, I had to really sort of develop my own understanding of what really is shared, especially between Peter, Jesus, and Paul in the early church in Acts, in terms of whatever the salvation business is about, and there was just a few things that came out of that, and one was repentance.

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And that is repentance from sin, and that's also very present in the

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Hebrew scriptures, and that's something that the sensationalists would attribute as a distinctive part of the pre -grace era, if I remember right, and then another is forgiveness of sin, okay, so there's forgiveness.

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It's not just repentance, but there's this reciprocal relationship and an action by God in a standing relationship, and that's found throughout the early church,

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Acts, and the others, and the third, gosh, I need to make sure

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I wanna get the language right here, I'm paging through the book, so I can make sure

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I get it right. Well, let me repeat, while you're looking, I'm gonna repeat our email address, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com for anybody who has a question about hyperdispensationalism, which is our topic today, and actually the book that our guest,

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Dr. Jamin Hubner wrote on this theme, because he's written other books, but this book is titled,

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Mishandling the Word of Truth, a Critique of Hyperdispensationalism.

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The third element was a message of faith, and that is very easily found in Peter, Jesus.

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I mean, it's amazing that I had to make that argument. Jesus taught a message of faith, like belief, trust me, but the hyperdispensationalist system is just so cut and dried in a way that it had to kind of excise that in a way, and downplay

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Jesus' own message of having faith, and so that is not distinctive of Paul, just like grace is not distinctive of Paul, and it should tell you something when entire organizations are named in institutions after grace, like that we're about grace.

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It's just kind of another sad reductionism of Christian theology, where it's sort of like, we have our thing, we just reduce everything in the scriptures down to one or two ideas, and just sort of filter everything through that, instead of a more sophisticated balance and robust theology.

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Now, there is a movement that has been nicknamed hypergrace, this is a movement that has been seriously critiqued and warned against by not only

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Calvinists, but Arminians alike, even Michael Brown, very well -known, charismatic,

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Arminian, messianic Jewish TV and radio host who I actually know, he's a wonderful brother in the

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Lord, although I have my serious disagreements with him on some points, on a number of points, and he has been highlighting his opposition to what is called the hypergrace movement, which is basically saying that to insist that somebody repent before they can have any peace that they are truly born from above, born again, that is adding works to salvation, that is a false gospel, that is almost akin, if not equivalent to Judaizing without the

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Jewish baggage, I guess, and that this is a heresy. So they think that people are coming to genuine faith in Christ because they have recited a prayer that the minister or the

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Christian approaching them has told them to recite, they've recited it, and sometimes it will be added, if you believe this in your heart, you are saved, and no matter what this person lives like, an overtly rebellious, wicked life that never is marked by any repentance, it could be decades, this person will be deemed a

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Christian and a fellow heir of heaven just because of this professed faith that he, at one point, had a heartfelt belief in.

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Was this, is that group bigger than this hyper -dispensationalist group?

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Yeah, I think it's safe to say it's probably larger and probably more influential, but those types of things are hard to measure or figure out, but it is distinctive, and it's funny because my book is dedicated to my mom who is loosely dispensationalist, although in some things she's pretty insistent about, and we argue about it, but the book's dedicated to her, and she sent me, before I did the second edition of this book, a copy of Michael Brown's book, which you just mentioned, on hyper -grace, and so I read it, and I did implement, worked some of it in to the second edition as appropriate, but it is a pretty different movement.

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I mean, it is, that's really a different project, and I generally wouldn't associate it to,

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I'm learning for different reasons, but. Right, because unfortunately, broad evangelicalism is really rampant with the hyper -grace, but not necessarily the hyper -dispensationalist.

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That's a really narrow focus of aberrant teaching. Yeah, and I think the methods are definitely different, too.

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I think, well, I don't know, it's hard to tell, because the hyper -dispensationalist or ultra -dispensationalist constituency is really extending globally, and sort of planting pockets around the world, and initially

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I was thinking that that wasn't, that isn't as common with maybe this mass megachurch, health, wealth, you know, hyper -grace, whatever stuff, but actually, you know, when

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I think about it, and from what I've gathered just in traveling, so much of other people think about Christians, and what they gain about American Christianity is from TBN and a lot of weird shows, and I mean,

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I don't know if that really grows in other areas of the world, but I guess maybe there is some kind of global presence of the hyper -grace movement,

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I guess I don't know, but anyway, yeah, they are pretty distinct theologically, and I think geographically is actually a factor as well.

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In fact, let's pick up on the geographic proponent, or component, I should say.

29:26

After we return from a station break, and I think that our computers are working now,

29:32

God did want these commercials to air, so he smiled upon me and knows that I need the money, and he wants my sponsors and advertisers to benefit from their sacrifice by being supportive of this program, so if you wanna join us on the air, we do have a couple of people still waiting for their questions to be asked, but if you'd like to join them, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com, don't go away, we'll be right back with Dr. Jamin Hubner, and they're discussing a -

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Iron Sharpens. Today. Welcome back. And I just love that new

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Todd Friel ad that he did for us about the G3 conference. That just, I just love that.

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The, by the way, our guest today, for those of you who just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with 90 minutes to go is

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Dr. Jamin Hubner, founding chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College.

34:08

In fact, I just saw yesterday a Westminster Theological Seminary edition of their

34:16

TV program on the National Religious Broadcasters Network where they in part paid tribute to John Witherspoon and other

34:25

Christians of American history. But our guest is the founding chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College.

34:35

And we are discussing his book, Mishandling the Word of Truth, a Critique of Hyper -Dispensationalism.

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And I'm assuming the title is some kind of a play on rightly dividing the word of truth.

34:50

Right. Yeah, and that's a favorite verse of hyper -dispensationalists and it is oddly used in favor of their particular perspective.

35:04

I'm actually getting feedback pretty strong. I can hear myself. I don't know.

35:11

Can you hear yourself now? Hold on a second. Let me do some work here to try to rectify that situation.

35:20

Well, keep speaking because I have a feeling if I mute myself, it may help matters.

35:26

Okay. Yeah, there's a title, Mishandling the Word of Truth.

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It is a play off of that New Testament text in 2

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Timothy 2 .15 that says, do your best to present yourself to God as unapproved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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And the whole thing is ironic because this is a favorite verse of hyper -dispensationalists.

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And I'll explain why in a minute, but at the same time, this verse, as well as handling the word of truth,

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I think has been compromised by hyper -dispensationalists. So it's sort of an ironic thing to find this verse being used in the beginning of several volumes in a hyper -dispensationalist library.

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And the reason why it's used almost as an advertisement, frankly, it's used very prolifically.

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And the phrase, rightly dividing the word of truth is what's used, and that's out of the

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King James. And I go to the translational issues and look at what does this mean and what's a better rendering and things like that.

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But hyper -dispensationalists, some of them are explicitly King James -only, the remainder tend to prefer the

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King James Bible. And so that alone, I think in my book, I demonstrate at least two, if not three times where an overemphasis on the specific rendering of the

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King James leads to serious problem and interpretation. And this is kind of one of them because the focus is on the word dividing.

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And they sort of see this as like shorthand for, you know, we need to rightly divide the

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Bible, and that's not even actually what is referred to there by word of truth, it's the gospel, regardless if it's written down or not.

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We need to rightly divide the Bible into different dispensations.

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And so really the verse is manipulated to basically say, you know, we need to be approved worker of God, rightly dividing the

37:52

Bible up into dispensations according to hyper -dispensationalism. So it's a really crass manipulation of a text and it's a pretty easy problem to handle and solve, but yeah, that's where the title came from.

38:12

Now, I think it would be a good idea also, we should have perhaps done this from the outset, but perhaps as much as you can in summary form, give an explanation of your own personal theological background or your theological beliefs.

38:29

I know that there are many Christians who don't like to use labels. I find labels, although they can be abused and sometimes make things confusing,

38:39

I think they actually help clarify matters more than they cloudy them. But if you could, you know, give us a description of where you're coming from theologically.

38:50

Okay, well, I could use a lot of different labels, like, let's see here, like neo -Calvinist, post -fundamentalist, ecumenical, protestant reform, et cetera.

39:09

It could go on, but I mean,

39:15

I'm broadly, I mean, I generally lean and find myself sympathetic for the more

39:22

Protestant expression of Christianity as opposed to Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. I really,

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I just taught a few days ago in the accreted confessions class on the Nicene Creed of 381, and that was one of my favorite creeds in the history of the

39:42

Church. Another is the 1983 Statement of Faith, brief

39:48

Statement of Faith, when two Presbyterian churches joined, and I really liked that one, too.

39:55

And as I said on your previous program, I find myself somewhat resonant with the

40:04

Reformed, at least some version of Reformed, such as in the Second London Baptist Confession or the

40:11

Savoy or the Westminster Confession, but I'm not as dogmatic as other people about it.

40:20

I don't say, like, this is the system in the Scripture, but I think it's a legitimate expression anyway, and there's a lot of things

40:32

I could commend about that. I do see a distinction between the different types of Reformed theology, between Calvin and Luther, between Calvin and English Puritanism and post -Reformation

40:47

Scholasticism, and then a neo -Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper and Hermann Boving, and they all kind of have different flavors, and I really strongly like and enjoy

41:03

Calvin's work, as well as Hermann Boving's in particular, and we could talk about what that implies or what the distinctions are for a long time.

41:14

Right, I didn't even know that Abraham Kuyper and Boving would be categorized as neo -Calvinists.

41:21

Well, I don't think they should be. I think really the

41:26

Puritans and a lot of the Dutch Reformed, like the Three Forms of Unity, are actually more neo, because I think they're actually more deviant of Calvin's teachings in his perspective, whereas Boving and Kuyper, I think, is actually a much better representation of Reformed theology, as in Calvin.

41:48

People disagree with me on that, but that's the view I've developed over the years.

41:54

So, but yeah, it doesn't mean like,

42:01

I don't know, like neo -Orthodoxy. The word neo is always sort of, you know, there's baggage to that, too.

42:09

Some people find that as like pseudo or fake, you know, but I don't.

42:14

Or just compromising to modern culture. Some would see it that way.

42:20

I don't quite see it that way, but. Mm -hmm. But okay. Anyway, I grew up Baptist and, you know, went to a couple schools,

42:29

Reformed schools, Door College, Reformed Seminary, and went to a university, and so that's sort of my background.

42:38

Now, am I misremembering something, if that is even a word?

42:44

Was this your doctoral dissertation, this book? Was this book my dissertation?

42:51

No, it is not. Oh, okay. For some reason, I had that in the back of my head. I don't know why that popped in there. I was probably reading something else that involved your doctoral dissertation, but that's okay.

43:02

And as far as going back to the book we are discussing, Mishandling the

43:08

Word of Truth, a Critique of Hyper -Dispensationalism, we do have a question all the way from Kinross, Scotland for you.

43:19

We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who asks, do hyper -dispensationalists still use 2

43:27

Timothy 2 .15, rightly dividing the word of truth as a justification for their approach to their way of viewing scripture, or do they, like Charles Ryrie, consider the verse to mean correctly handling the word of God in both analysis and presentation, which presumably allows for a much wider application?

43:47

Do they now view that particular verse as not justifying their dividing into dispensations, or do they cling on to that narrow, false meaning?

43:58

Well, I think you'll probably have both. I mean, I can't say, I can't speak on behalf of the whole group.

44:03

It's pretty varied. People like Charles Baker, Charles F. Baker was a very careful hyper -dispensationalist.

44:10

He's probably the only true academic of the group. He wrote a whole system of ideology, and it was even endorsed, if I remember right, by the president of Wheaton College.

44:20

So, I mean, that kind of tells you how popular, at least it was, or how respectable it seemed.

44:27

And others, like J .C. O 'Hare, Fink, and others are writing more popular works, and they don't feel, you know, they're not gonna make as many qualifications or be quite as careful.

44:40

So, I think you're gonna find both. You're gonna find, I think I do find that I have found both of those cases happening, where that particular text is crassly, rashly, quickly, conveniently used as a justification, as a license for their particular theology.

45:00

In other cases, if it was pressed to somebody like Charles Baker or maybe some others, they're not gonna say, well, you know, yeah, you're right.

45:11

This doesn't say we should divide the Bible up into dispensations.

45:17

It means more we should correctly interpret and take care of the apostolic message.

45:25

So, I think you'll probably find both, and yeah, I wouldn't be comfortable saying, well, they're gonna go, everybody's gonna go one way or the other and that type of thing.

45:33

Now, historically, was there a father of hyper -dispensationalism? I'm assuming since dispensationalism itself has only been around since the 19th century, this must be a 20th century phenomenon.

45:47

It is kind of a 20th century phenomenon, you're right, and the closest thing to a founder or father is probably

45:57

Cornelius Stamm, and he wrote a book called

46:02

Things That Differ. I think it's free online, and it's kind of a rough read, but it's an attempt at really laying down the foundations to that system, particularly with regard to hermeneutics and recognizing the distinctive ministry of the

46:21

Apostle Paul. There are others involved, and, you know, there's some that authors like Douglas Stauffer and some others that have their own little ministries, and they might be the most popular in terms of getting attention and selling books and stuff, but they're not actually associated with the

46:45

Berean Bible Society, which is kind of the society, the organization that is the hyper -dispensationalist organization, which is based out of Wisconsin, and Chicago is kind of the big two areas where most of the history and the activity of the growth of the movement is taking place.

47:05

So I would have to say probably Cornelius Stamm, if anybody, in terms of, and possibly

47:13

Baker as well, but. Now, when was Stamm living, writing, and preaching?

47:24

Well, in the 1940s, I'd have to check his exact, gosh, his exact biography.

47:33

I think he died, let's see. Started, so the Grace Bible College was started by Charles Baker and Stamm in 1945, and just recently, in 2004, their theological seminary in St.

47:50

Louis was started. I can't remember when he died, though.

47:56

So it's kind of a heyday of that initial growth was the 40s and 50s.

48:01

Okay, by the way, has that echo gone away? Because I never heard the echo, but do you still hear the echo?

48:07

You know, it was gone for a while, and now it's back, but I think I can work with it, so don't worry about it. Okay, and going back to something that we brought up before,

48:16

I just wanted to clarify it, though. Although all, although not all, of the hyper -grace movement are hyper -dispensationalists, are all hyper -dispensationalists involved in a form of hyper -grace that rejects repentance as necessary for salvation?

48:45

Well, I guess I don't quite see, I don't know,

48:53

I'm very hesitant to draw a line between the hyper -grace stuff of like Prince's writings and the other people that Michael Brown critiques in his book on hyper -grace.

49:04

I'm hesitant in drawing a line from that to hyper -dispensationalism.

49:11

I guess you're right on an ideological level, there is some similarities with regard to downplaying the importance of repentance from sin.

49:24

I don't, I think there are probably going to be some people within the confines of the

49:32

Beroean Bible Society and elsewhere, Grace Bible College and professors and so forth, that are, they're not going to be very comfortable with this no repentance stuff.

49:45

So, but in terms of the major writings in that level, there seems to be a pretty strong message regarding that.

49:58

And that it's, you know, we're in a time of grace. So if that makes sense.

50:04

Yeah, we do have a listener from Sharpsburg, Georgia, Lou, who says, would you say any of John MacArthur's dispensational beliefs would fall outside the pale of orthodoxy?

50:21

That's a phrase that Hank Hanegraaff always used to use. The pale of orthodoxy,

50:27

I guess my answer would probably be no. When I hear the word orthodoxy,

50:36

I mean, that can mean a number of different things. That could mean ecumenical consensus. In other words, the

50:42

Nicene tradition of the Eastern Orthodox, the East West, and the whole church, you know, of that, of the 300s

50:52

AD and 200s and so forth, that general period. So orthodoxy could refer to Nicene orthodoxy.

51:01

It could, to a lot of people, unfortunately, that term can mean something like, well, it's sort of whatever

51:08

I'm comfortable, you know, calling Christianity. You know, to others, it could mean, you know, just what properly that word

51:18

Christian can be properly used as an adjective. Like, where we get, that's actually an exercise

51:26

I do in class, is with my students, we go through, you know, some different beliefs and ideas, and I ask them, you know, when do you get to the point where you say,

51:37

I don't feel comfortable, I don't feel it's right to call this Christian. And so that's another way of defining orthodoxy.

51:46

Another way, a fourth way of defining orthodoxy is what is, like, necessary for a person to be saved or to have, to be in the kingdom of God.

51:58

And, you know, is it a certain set of propositions that have to be ascended to, and which ones are they?

52:04

So long story short, I think giving attention to the different understandings of orthodoxy, and even giving attention to most of them in a fairly conservative perspective,

52:18

I would not say, from what I know of MacArthur, I haven't read all his books,

52:24

I don't think anybody has, I listened to his sermons a lot growing up as a teenager, and I really enjoyed him.

52:31

He is one of my modern day heroes, even though I'm not a dispensationalist, and I've had him on the program, and he very rarely, if you take into consideration the dominant topics or area of discussion or things from the scriptures that he exegetes, the dispensational aspect is a tiny minority.

53:00

I mean, he does at times really hammer on it, but you could listen to John MacArthur, you could listen to the

53:07

Grace to You radio or TV program, and you could listen to it for a year and never hear a dispensationalist distinctive come up, and he also has become, something

53:20

I'm happy about in particular, a five -point Calvinist. He became one,

53:26

I believe in the, a lot of people are surprised by this, but he didn't become a five -point Calvinist until the late 90s, early 2000s, somewhere in that neighborhood of time, and that was confirmed to me by Phil Johnson, who actually is the editor for most of John MacArthur's books.

53:46

There's a person who has read every one of John MacArthur's books, Phil Johnson. But anyway, and also, it obviously should be made clear that John MacArthur is in no way, shape, or form a hyper -dispensationalist.

54:01

In fact, his views are so strong on repentance, having written about it in at least three books as a focused topic, the

54:15

Gospel According to Jesus being the most famous, he would be lambasted and accused of heresy by many in that hyper -dispensationalist group.

54:25

Yeah, yeah, I definitely wouldn't associate the two. Although it is sort of funny in just thinking,

54:31

I just remembered the title of his ministry is Great to You, so that's sort of funny. But yeah, he's in a different category there, and yeah, like I said,

54:43

I haven't listened to him in years, but in my teenage years, I really appreciated his exposition anyway.

54:49

Yeah, by the way, Lou from Sharpsburg, Georgia, you're getting a free copy of Justin Huebner's book that we are addressing today,

54:57

Misunderstanding, oh, I'm sorry, Mishandling. I misunderstood the title.

55:02

Mishandling, the word of truth, a critique of hyper -dispensationalism. So we thank you.

55:09

Keep spreading the word in Georgia about our program, and I hope that you come to the

55:15

G3 Conference in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, where I will be manning an exhibitor's booth.

55:22

So thanks for writing. This issue, people may be thinking that we are, you know, straining out gnats and swallowing camels, or counting the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin.

55:39

There are a lot of people, whenever you get into a deep theological discussion about something, they think that you're wasting time, that we should be all just holding hands with everybody who believes in Jesus and fighting the evils of the world, that we would all be in harmony and in opposition to.

56:03

But this is very serious when you're talking about someone who is giving a false hope of salvation to somebody who is bearing no fruit.

56:17

Isn't that a very serious and deadly issue? Well, yeah,

56:23

I think that would be. I mean, I guess my own concern with this is the real kind of cultic exclusiveness of the movement, where, for example, in one of his books,

56:44

Fink, oh, how does he put it exactly? He basically says, he warns his readers not to listen to the gospel of anyone but Paul.

57:00

And I think anytime someone says, don't listen to the words of Jesus, or they're sort of expired,

57:10

I think that's a very serious problem. And another issue is, as we already covered a couple of times, is repentance, is what, is there any legitimate form of being sorry for sin today other than looking at who we've hurt and then feeling bad for it?

57:36

That's not genuine repentance. Thomas Oden, in his book, Classic Christianity, has a really good discussion on repentance.

57:43

And he says it's much more than that. It's not just looking at people you've hurt and saying,

57:50

I'm sorry. It's like being, sitting in the presence of your creator and having this almost an existential crisis, you might say, something, where you're sort of disgusted with yourself.

58:05

You really wanna be a different person. And you're going to totally give your life, yourself, your consciousness to God and to Jesus, who is willing to forgive, more than willing to forgive, and willing to change your life.

58:24

And so those are kind of the two issues that stick out to me when it comes to the seriousness of it.

58:31

And as you said, I mean, holding hands and fighting the evil of the world,

58:38

I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, of course. And that's actually part of the task of theology is unifying and finding the common ground necessary for an effective church community and an effective proclamation of the gospel and an effective witness to the truth, too.

59:08

So I see that as integrated. But anyway, yeah, there's definitely some serious issues here.

59:14

It's not just quibbling, splitting hairs and debating arbitrary issues when it comes to a couple of things that I mentioned.

59:25

Yeah, what I meant by holding hands with those who deny Christ and for the cause of some higher purpose, which, and when

59:37

I say higher purpose, I'm not saying that I view it as a higher purpose. There are many Christians or professing Christians who view cleaning up America as a higher purpose than the gospel, about the gospel that Jesus Christ proclaimed, about the person and work of Jesus Christ, about who the

59:57

Godhead is, and so on. These things are looked upon as trivial in compared to, now when

01:00:08

I'm gonna go through a list, these are things that I am passionate about. But they think that opposing same -sex marriage and opposing abortion and opposing a lot of other things that have become, that our nation has become overrun by, they think that that is, opposing those things is more important than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:00:36

And that's where I have to say, no, you're absolutely wrong. And it is ironic to me that this has really occurred within churches that historically did believe that there is a serious difference between the gospel of Rome and the

01:01:03

Reformation and other things, and they did draw a line of demarcation.

01:01:09

But we are gonna be going to another station break, and if you'd like to join us on the air, we've got

01:01:14

Dr. Huebner on for another hour. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:01:23

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:01:31

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01:05:22

Chris Arnzen here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia. And here's my friend, Dr. James White, to tell you why.

01:05:29

Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. I hope you join me at the G3 Conference, hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church, at the

01:05:38

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

01:05:46

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Balcombe, Conrad M.

01:05:53

Bayway, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

01:06:01

G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

01:06:08

That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

01:06:13

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibit booth while you're there. Welcome back.

01:06:18

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours. He's already been on for an hour and has an hour to go.

01:06:26

Dr. Jamin Hubner, who is founding chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College.

01:06:32

And he has written a book, among others, that is titled, Mishandling the

01:06:38

Word of Truth, a Critique of Hyper -Dispensationalism. And I really want to read a couple of the, a few of the glowing endorsements for this book.

01:06:49

This book does not merely address a mishandling of the word of truth. It also serves as a sound defense for the need to embrace the unity of the scriptures as a whole.

01:07:01

The book explains the unfolding of the gospel of Jesus Christ as one gospel for all ages.

01:07:08

Jamin is particularly gifted in his ability to present difficult matters and distinctions in an understandable and very readable form.

01:07:18

Mishandling the word of truth is a beneficial read. And that is Art Sardiorius.

01:07:25

I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing his name. He is pastor of Black Hills Community Church.

01:07:31

And then we have, in this very helpful, fair, and irenic book, Jamin Hubner does the evangelical church a service by providing a devastating biblical and theological critique of the movement he labels hyper -dispensationalism.

01:07:47

For those not familiar with this theology, a theology which unfortunately continues to exert influence within the church,

01:07:54

Hubner not only lays out the historical background of the view, he particularly and patiently evaluates its biblical argument with accuracy and precision.

01:08:06

In doing so, Hubner also points the direction toward a more faithful and biblical reading of scripture.

01:08:13

I highly commend this work. Dr. Stephen Willem, PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Professor of Christian Theology, Southwestern, I'm sorry,

01:08:23

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and co -author of Kingdom Through Covenant.

01:08:30

And finally, Jamin's work is a must -read for the church today. He not only gives us a history of the movement and its theology, but a very helpful critique that is based on scripture.

01:08:42

His research into this movement is evident throughout its pages, and his footnotes alone are well worth the price of the book.

01:08:51

I highly recommend Mishandling the Word of Truth. Now obviously, that's a funny way of phrasing it, isn't it?

01:08:57

I highly recommend Mishandling the Word of Truth. But he obviously didn't mean it that way. I highly recommend

01:09:02

Mishandling the Word of Truth to pastors, seminary students, elders, and lay leaders, and anyone who loves

01:09:09

God's word. Pablo Herrera, who is a ruling elder at Spring Valley Presbyterian Church, and those are some pretty powerful endorsements.

01:09:18

And again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com if you'd like to join us on the air with some questions for our guests.

01:09:28

And one thing is certain, I definitely need to get a pair of prescription glasses and stop relying on these five and dime things that I've got here.

01:09:37

But we have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who asks, is the problem with dispensational eschatology that it looks to the fallen world around us rather than scripture?

01:09:54

He's obviously addressing a more broader group of people, not just the hyper -dispensationalists.

01:10:00

And I don't know if he's referring to the fact that many dispensationalists will isogeet current events from TV, internet, newspaper, and magazines, and radio.

01:10:14

They will isogeet things that are going on around them into the scripture and interpret it that way, but I'm not 100 % sure that's what he means, but do you want to answer that if you could?

01:10:26

Sure, I think what's behind the question is, if we could rephrase it, is the problem with hyper -dispensationalism is that they're too influenced by contemporary events than seeking out instruction from biblical revelation.

01:10:44

And this really goes back, I think, to dispensationalism generically and the impact of modernism on theology in the early 1900s and late 1800s, and how that really gave dispensationalism a boost.

01:11:03

I don't think hyper -dispensationalism would have ever really came into being or survived had it not had the pad or the momentum of, we'd say, classic dispensationalism.

01:11:21

And when you have all the problems of public education, you have Darwinism, you have

01:11:27

Freudian psychology, you have Marxism, and a whole bunch of things happening kind of all at once in this period, and then, to take it all off, two world wars.

01:11:44

It really starts to look like the world is falling apart, the church is in ruins, and that's basically what, it's almost explicitly what

01:11:53

Darby and Moody and Schofield and Dwight Pentecost said.

01:12:01

It is an escapist theology, at least it was that way. I don't want to speak for dispensationalists today, but I think it's definitely fair to say that at least traditional dispensationalism was highly influenced by the events, and just like theology is throughout history.

01:12:18

It's not, this isn't a criticism of singling out dispensationalists and making fun of them, although I confess

01:12:26

I've done my share of that, so too much throughout time, but particularly with friends and family, we debate about these things.

01:12:34

But yeah, it is, I think there is a serious undercurrent of a kind of cynical perspective on,

01:12:52

I don't want to say creation, but at least in terms of current events, and that's why dispensationalism became so intertwined with American politics and Zionism.

01:13:02

And that is a very practical implication of dispensationalism and hyper -dispensationalism.

01:13:08

When it comes down to people sending you and saying, look, you gotta take out your checkbook and write cash, write on a check and give cash to this country,

01:13:20

Israel, or to organizations over there. Nevermind it's a very atheistic community, it's not even close to a

01:13:29

Christian community, they have an extremely high abortion rate, it's a terribly ungodly country in a number of ways.

01:13:36

And you know, Christians are told on the basis of dispensationalism and hyper -dispensationalism that there's a moral obligation to support the modern

01:13:47

Jewish state today. I don't buy that, and again, I have a chapter dedicated to just that issue in the book.

01:13:55

And so I think that's just one of a number of different issues where you find contemporary engagement like the 1948 war and the establishment of the state of Israel, like modernism and all the things that it brought to the table.

01:14:10

All of that shape, the tone, and I think to some degree the content of this theology, and that continues.

01:14:22

And you know, what those terrible things are today that we look at and say, see, the world is going to hell in a handbasket, or however it's put.

01:14:34

And so we need to just, you know, the metaphor, I think it was Moody who said that God has given you a lifeboat and said,

01:14:42

Moody, save all you can. And so that's like the whole framework of approaching it.

01:14:49

And so I would say yes to the question, there is definitely some uncritical acceptance or being influenced by contemporary situations.

01:15:07

I say uncritical because I think God is, God is God. He's sovereign over the world, this is

01:15:13

God's world, and it's working in all kinds of ways that we barely recognize. And so the changes that occur and the challenges the church faces is all part of God's plan.

01:15:27

And so the particular challenges of an age that shape theology is part of that.

01:15:33

You know, it's like we get different creeds, confessions, we learn different things because of different issues.

01:15:39

You know, the slavery issue was not an issue in the first century, you know? Even though one out of five people in the

01:15:46

Roman Empire were slaves and it was dominant, very lightly addressed by the church, but then it came to a head eventually, you know?

01:15:53

The same with, you know, women's issues in relation to the state and the different doctrines, you know, like justification or works of righteousness or revelation of philosophy.

01:16:04

So all this is to say that this is God's world, theology develops in response to and in coordination with culture.

01:16:15

But there is a point where, yes, Christians can be uncritically influenced by and not understand that they're just mirroring and reflecting trends of their own time.

01:16:32

And that is true for all of church history. There's examples of that falling over the edge.

01:16:40

So now to what extent does hyper -distance nationalism, is it influenced by contemporary issues?

01:16:51

And, you know, I mean, when I remember it was like, Obama was the Antichrist, you know, the year before he got elected.

01:16:58

And this was like all part of an end time scheme just as virtually every president is, you know?

01:17:07

And so, I don't know what those arguments are. I will say that the hyper -distance nationals in the writings, they're not as, at least in what

01:17:18

I've read, not quite as escapist in that reflection and aren't quite as cushy about some of the political issues, anyway.

01:17:28

So it seems oddly that the hyper -distance nationalists, when it comes to eschatology, might be more sound.

01:17:36

Is that what you're saying, than the traditional? Well, at least the tone is not as...

01:17:47

They're not hobby -horsing on the eschatology. They're hobby -horsing on their very aberrant understanding of how the gospel changed and the divisions in the scripture.

01:17:59

Yeah, I mean, yeah, and I don't see, I haven't seen many connections between hyper -distance theology and their developments and contemporary prophetic fulfillment, whereas traditional dispensationalists are very concerned about prophecy, contemporary events,

01:18:20

Israel, the Middle East, and everything like that. Right, right. Just like the, you have the hyper -preterists who are so consumed with their denial of the visible, physical, bodily return of Christ and the bodily resurrection of the dead in the future, they are so consumed with that issue that that's almost all they talk about.

01:18:45

Sure, yeah. But by the way, in case some anti -Semite red lights were flashing, as if you are wrongly thinking that to dare critique in any way the modern -day state of Israel is somehow connected with anti -Semitism,

01:19:05

I just wanna remind our listeners that the establishment of the nation of Israel, the new modern -day state of Israel in Palestine, that was really an undertaking that was really supported solely by the more liberal groups of Jews back in the earlier part of the 20th century when this occurred.

01:19:37

And the Hasidics, for instance, all unilaterally vehemently opposed this because they said the

01:19:46

Messiah has to bring in and usher in the new nation of Israel, the restored nation.

01:19:53

And even today, most, well, I don't know about most, but today there is a considerable number of Hasidics who are opposed to the current nation of Israel.

01:20:04

They think it's illegitimate. And you'll be also interested, in fact, perhaps

01:20:10

I should email Jamin an MP3 of this. I had a fascinating interview on the old

01:20:16

Iron Sharpens Iron program. I think it was in 2007. I had an interview with two very dear, well, actually one very dear friend,

01:20:26

Robert Unger, and his dear friend, Robert Mushnik, who are both

01:20:32

Orthodox Jews, not Hasidic, but Orthodox Jews who are very opposed to the government of Israel.

01:20:39

They're Zionists, but they're opposed to the government of Israel, and they would have described it perhaps even in more critical language than Dr.

01:20:48

Huebner just did. In fact, they can remember them on my program calling them atheist communists and so on.

01:20:56

But they were actually, on my show, cautioning or warning dispensationalist

01:21:03

Christians on how they should be sending their money to Israel, and they were basically saying that Christians are being naive if they are just supporting the government of Israel, which they were actually making the case that the government of Israel, believe it or not, is anti -Jewish.

01:21:22

Their point of view is that the government of Israel was drawing a distinction between an

01:21:27

Israeli, which they want everyone in their nation to be, an Israeli, and a

01:21:33

Jewish person, which is a religious person, and it's quite a fascinating interview. Perhaps I'll send that to you.

01:21:39

Sure, I think that'd be very interesting. Yeah, it's a very interesting topic, and I've done some reading on it, a little bit of writing, and at one point

01:21:49

I was branded a shill for Hamas. That's a label

01:21:55

I really need to print out and hang up in my room somewhere. But it really, the theology to me seems pretty straightforward.

01:22:06

The New Covenant, there is no Jew or Greek, and there's several metaphors of transition that make it very clear what the relationship is, such as the tree in Romans nine, the household in Ephesians two, and the flock of God in the

01:22:25

Gospel of John, and the teachings and sayings of Jesus. And so I think the fundamental pillar, or one of the fundamental pillars of traditional and hyper -distancationalism, which is the parallel tracks and the distinction between Israel and the

01:22:43

Church, I think is very easily critiqued and overturned and should be problematized.

01:22:52

But yeah, it does leave this an interesting and startling political and practical

01:22:58

Church implications in a Christian living, and I was in Israel for about two weeks and saw all kinds of,

01:23:08

I think it's all the major sites, and spent some days there, Jessica and I by ourselves, and Eilat, and then

01:23:15

Tel Aviv, and all the things that wasn't covered in the tour, or the tour guides and didn't want us to see, maybe.

01:23:25

But so, yeah, I mean, I don't speak out of complete ignorance and I certainly don't hate any ethnicity, that's absurd.

01:23:35

And the very fact that we have to make those calls and the clarification says that we're just not thinking critically about the issue, if we immediately jump to those kind of conclusions, you know, we're already exposing our cards that, oh my gosh, we're being influenced by something that's just not thoughtful.

01:23:53

And so, and that's, those are hard discussions to have.

01:23:59

You know, I remember having lunch with an elderly couple in their 80s, really faithful, wonderful Christian couple, and I was just having lunch there with some family and friends, and they weren't really my friends, they were friends of friends, but I was with them.

01:24:15

And anyway, you know, Ron Paul came up and they said, Ron Paul, he wants

01:24:21

Israel wiped off the face of the map. And I'm like, what?

01:24:28

And so it just kind of shows, you know, how challenging that is. But there's some good books on it now.

01:24:35

You know, Zion's Christian Soldiers, and Gary Berg has two books on it. Jesus and the

01:24:40

Land, a really good small book, is a good one. And his other one, Whose Land, He's Promised.

01:24:46

And then Walter Brueggemann just came out with a new one as well on that subject, but I haven't read it yet.

01:24:54

And I don't know if my guest, Jamin, would agree with me, but I also, in contrast,

01:25:02

I want to make it clear that I do believe that the Reformed community, theologically

01:25:08

Reformed Christians and Calvinists can totally ignore their

01:25:14

Jewish neighbors and think, ironically, that there's some kind of a hopeless cause in the 21st century.

01:25:21

And I thoroughly applaud my Jewish brethren in Christ who have come to embrace

01:25:28

Jesus as their Messiah and who are going to the

01:25:35

Jewish communities, their loved ones, their relatives, their neighbors, their colleagues, and pointing to them the fact that Jesus was very present in the

01:25:46

Old Covenant and in their Hebrew scriptures. Not by name, but he certainly, as the second person of the

01:25:56

Godhead, has always existed. And I applaud the work of Ron Elkin, who is a

01:26:04

Presbyterian and theologically Reformed brother in Christ who is a Jewish believer and has a ministry that focuses on Jewish evangelism.

01:26:13

So I don't want to give my listeners the wrong impression that I somehow ignore that element of Christian life.

01:26:20

And just as we need to evangelize all people groups, so to reflect what the book of Revelation has prophesied about those from every nation, tribe, and people and tongue worshiping the

01:26:38

Lamb, we should be trying to reflect that in our own churches, having people from all those walks of life and cultures come to Christ through his grace and be represented in our congregations, if at all possible.

01:26:55

But we're going right now to our final break. And if you'd like to join us, now is the time to do it because we've got about a half hour left.

01:27:05

So send us your emails at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:27:10

I did not forget about those who are waiting still to have their questions asked and answered. So we'll be right back with you.

01:27:19

We have given away all our books though, I can tell you that. So we don't have any more copies of Dr. Huebner's book to give away, but we hope that you still send in a question nonetheless.

01:27:29

And we're gonna be right back with Dr. Jamin Huebner, so please don't go away. I wrote to the church at Galatia, for am

01:27:36

I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

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01:27:49

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01:27:56

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01:30:20

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01:31:04

That's lindbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back, this is

01:31:11

Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in, our guest for the last 90 minutes and the next half hour to come has been and will be

01:31:19

Dr. Jamin Huebner, founding chair of Christian Studies at John Witherspoon College. Our topic of discussion today has been and will continue to be mishandling the word of truth, a critique of hyper -dispensationalism.

01:31:34

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:31:42

And we hope to hear from you before the end of the program and we do have another listener.

01:31:53

Actually, it's David again from Ada, Ohio. When I talk about a

01:31:58

Jew in the New Testament with a dispensationalist, I find the statement, you're right, there is no distinction between a

01:32:05

Jew and a Gentile in this age of grace. However, by saying that, by saying what the dispensationalist says, he is making a distinction between a

01:32:16

Jew in the New Testament and Israel of the Old Testament as two different peoples of God, one in the church and the other in Old Testament Israel.

01:32:27

Could you comment on this? Well, I guess

01:32:32

I would encourage some discussion to take place regarding, say for example,

01:32:42

Romans nine through 11, and look at how Paul uses these terms. I think the way the

01:32:50

New Testament authors use the term Jew, Greek, church, Israel, is very informative and is really gonna be kind of the guide to help us along.

01:33:01

The apostle Paul, for example, says not all Israel is Israel. Well, what does he mean by that?

01:33:08

You know, the end of Galatians, he refers to, you know, may peace be upon,

01:33:14

I can't remember exactly how it goes within the phrases, and all the Israel of God. And what does that mean?

01:33:21

It doesn't appear he's talking about a physical or even an ethnic or even a geographic type of issue of Jew, as it were.

01:33:34

And it is particularly confusing, I'll admit, when getting into the fine nuances of this discussion, because it's a transitory time, it's an interstitial time.

01:33:50

The fading away of the Old Covenant era is not instantaneous. You know, there's different points of transition, such as the, you know, the birth and ministry of Christ, and then, of course, the cross, the resurrection, but then

01:34:13

Pentecost, and then the collapse of the temple, and, you know, the

01:34:19

Jewish revolt, and these different prophecies that were fulfilled there. So it isn't always, you know, we have to be flexible and open to the extent that the situation just kind of defies categories sometimes.

01:34:40

The events going on sort of defy categories, unique categorizations, and actually, this is an issue that hyper -distance spatialists wrap themselves up into.

01:34:50

They start asking the question, well, so is Peter a member of Israel, or is

01:34:56

Peter a member of the body of Christ? And my response is, well, first of all, what does that mean?

01:35:05

And how does it matter? And aren't we sort of assuming these categories to begin with, and why?

01:35:15

You know what I mean? And so a person really, if you've had discussions with hyper -distance spatialists, allowing the right question to be asked and the right questions to be ignored, it's just gonna get you in a mess, and there's no way out of it.

01:35:33

And so really, a person can't really play along with those semantic games, and has to, from the outset, raise some legitimate uncertainty, and then say, okay, well, then what is certain?

01:35:49

What do we know about the nature of the New Covenant community? You know, and going to Heber's aid, and looking at how it actually unfolds and acts.

01:36:03

So I'm not sure there's a really straightforward answer to the question, but it did become clear over time.

01:36:10

And I think it's fairly clear today regarding, you know, we are in a

01:36:19

New Covenant period. What does it mean to be in the New Covenant community to be those who proclaim the Lordship of Christ and repent of sin?

01:36:28

We come together, we meet in the name of the Lord. Already right there, that's different than the

01:36:35

First Testament, you know, where it was more of a physical, ethnic, geographic thing. And, you know, circumcision was based on being part of a family and not a profession of faith at the site of the

01:36:47

Covenant. That has changed, you know, baptism in large table and things like that.

01:36:53

So, and it is debated, and actually there's been some recent books published on it, progressive dispensationalism, which in terms of tone is a huge relief,

01:37:10

I think. When I was studying these things, I read Charles Ryrie's dispensationalism, and then immediately followed it up with Daryl Bach.

01:37:20

I think that was him. And I think another author, might've been Blazing, or I can't remember who comes to mind, but progressive dispensationalism.

01:37:29

And that just the difference in tone and approach, progressive dispensationalism is much more tempered and cautious.

01:37:37

But, you know, the assertion is still that, well, you know, there's some kind of special, you know, relationship of Jews today with God.

01:37:49

And, you know, I would say, well, well, yeah, in terms of lineage and history and tradition, of course,

01:38:00

I mean, there's unique things about all of our ancestors, you know.

01:38:07

I wouldn't really draw much more than that, that, you know, progressive dispensationalism wouldn't, regular dispensationalism certainly would.

01:38:15

Heisberg dispensationalism would go pretty crazy about it. But, I don't know if that helps, but I didn't quite,

01:38:23

I don't know, maybe the question could be phrased in a different way, but maybe that kind of lays out the broader contours of how to go about it anyway.

01:38:33

I think that there was one figure that I heard about from a historic figure that was involved in the dawn of hyper -dispensationalism that I think that you may have not mentioned,

01:38:49

I could be wrong, but E .W. Bollinger, do you know of his contribution to this thought?

01:38:56

Yeah, he's been considered an ultra -dispensationalist too, and I think

01:39:02

I'd have to re -visit my notes in my book, it's been some years now, but I think the reason why

01:39:16

I didn't implement him in the book was because he came a bit later, or he had some heretical views, and so wasn't, like, included in the group or something, but no,

01:39:28

I have not read much of Bollinger, and so I, no, I can't say too much about it, but I do think

01:39:36

I cite him in the book a couple of times, if I remember right. Yeah, because he is a late 19th century, early 20th century figure, so it would seem that he would be.

01:39:44

Yeah, I think it was on the heels of, or after Darby, but I can't remember what the situation was,

01:39:54

I can't remember, I'd have to re -read, but. We have C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who asks, do most of those adhering to this movement believe they are the only

01:40:06

Christians, and that all of us are damned, and if not, do they ever include some fairly well -known figures from more biblically sound

01:40:19

Christianity in their conferences, speaking engagements, colleges, et cetera?

01:40:27

That's a good question. I think you're gonna have evidence of both answers.

01:40:34

I did anyway. Actually, on a literary basis,

01:40:41

I think the perspective of exclusivism is probably stronger, and that's based on some of the statements by O 'Hare and Fink and others, when they frame it like we shouldn't tell other people to be saved according to Peter and Jesus' writings, or any of the

01:41:10

New Testament writings. We really, there's some urgency there, like we need to say that they're getting, say that they're going to follow the apostle

01:41:20

Paul and tell them that that's the only way of salvation, and there's,

01:41:29

I guess in that urgency, I feel like there's the assertion, they don't say it, okay?

01:41:34

They're smart enough where they're not gonna say, well, unless you're hyper -dispensationalist, you're damned, at least there's some,

01:41:44

I don't know if you'd call it wisdom, but. And of course, they wouldn't be calling themselves hyper -dispensationalists.

01:41:52

Yeah, and when they, they wouldn't call themselves that either, you know, they'd be the true, they would call themselves dispensationalists.

01:41:59

Right, right. Acts 29 dispensationalists, Acts 13 dispensationalists is the label they would assign to themselves.

01:42:09

But I think there probably is that going on, they don't say that, but do they include other people?

01:42:20

Are they open in conferences, events, and churches and different things? I haven't really followed that too much.

01:42:29

I do know that it's sectarian enough to where they start their own school, a seminary and Bible Institute, and would be very hesitant in encouraging kids going elsewhere, so that's what

01:42:44

I do know. So I mean, we can draw the lines how we will from there,

01:42:50

I guess. It is interesting that anyone who believes that to require works as an evidence of salvation would say that you're damned, and yet they believe that all one needs is an intellectual assent to their gospel in order to be saved.

01:43:16

How do they then lose their salvation if they start believing that repentance is necessary later on, you know what

01:43:25

I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

01:43:32

But have any of these leaders, either historically or contemporary, been favorably cited, and have their works been included in more biblically sound and trustworthy seminaries where they are?

01:43:52

No, I mean, there's virtually no, well,

01:43:59

I don't wanna say no, I mean, because their college, Grace Bible College, it's accredited, it has 150 students or whatever, or 200,

01:44:11

I can't remember, somewhere around there. You know, with actually some really decently credentialed professors who are academics,

01:44:21

I think it's a situation where this is a tradition they were raised in, and they could find a job, and they are not writing a bunch of things in support of these views.

01:44:34

So the general answer is no, it's pretty anti -intellectual. There's no real academic foundation.

01:44:41

You know, they start their own journals, and, but as I write in the beginning, in the preface to the second edition, you know, the seminary in St.

01:44:51

Louis in 2004, you know, that they're awarding honorary doctorates to their own people, and,

01:44:59

I mean, there's no doctoral program in place. Okay, and,

01:45:06

I mean, I'd have to take too much time to enfold what a doctoral degree is, and what an honorary one is, and how that functions in traditional academia in the university to really show the significance of that, but it really exposes it as being a good old boys club and self -legitimation, and trying to achieve a credibility, or the appearance of credibility to the public, when in reality, no, there is no regular citation or referencing of this movement, so, and for obvious reasons.

01:45:48

We have, let's see, we have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, do you believe that the leaders of this movement, who actually know what they're doing and teaching, are brethren in Christ, or do you think that they would be more in the category of a cult or someone whose salvation we should question?

01:46:15

That is the issue I address in the first two chapters of the book, and I define what a cult is,

01:46:21

I define what orthodoxy is, I look at different confessions and different standards of what it means to be Christian, so I try to carefully enfold that because it is a difficult question, and it's not something

01:46:33

I take lightly. I don't think it's very easy in a number of different aspects in condemning anyone, and withholding fellowship is a serious thing.

01:46:52

So, on the one hand, well, there's a model, or an embodiment, of what you might say is traditional evangelical, ecclesiological worship, or church worship, so you go to church on Sunday, you do your half -hour singing, a sermon, so all that looks the same.

01:47:14

There is a confess, there's Trinitarianism, right? There's, you'd say, Nicene Orthodoxy, and so, on that basis,

01:47:22

I'd say, well, yeah, we could call them brothers and sisters in Christ. On the other hand, the degree of specificity and the weird, you know, one of the marks of a true church has traditionally been, you know, a right administration of the sacraments, at least during the

01:47:44

Reform period, and not baptizing anybody is not a right administration of the sacraments, and right administering of the

01:47:54

Word, well, they're very insistent that only Paul's writings apply to the church today, they say that language, some would even say only

01:48:06

Paul's prison epistles apply, or are relevant, or are binding, or authoritative to the church today, so the right administration of the

01:48:15

Word is not really in place, either. And there's, you know,

01:48:21

I have some concerns about the sectarian, cultish nature of it, and being out in the weeds of, you know, the

01:48:27

Midwest and the type of colonies that are established, and the type of family environment that's cultivated, and encouraged,

01:48:36

I don't think it's healthy at all, and I think it's very isolated in that way.

01:48:42

I mean, not quite like Hutterites or, you know, Amish, but there's some of that spirit going on, too, which

01:48:51

I think is concerning, as well. So, I don't know, I would be hesitant in attributing those titles, but I wouldn't assume that a person does not have a right relationship with God, because almost nobody's consistent with their own theology, you know what

01:49:11

I mean? So, it's like you're gonna find people who, they haven't really drank the

01:49:18

Kool -Aid, as it were, and they don't believe in the church itself. So, you know,

01:49:25

I think that's hopeful, and that goes with Catholics in different groups, as well, that, you know, we don't, it kind of has to be a case -by -case basis when we're talking about individual fellowship like that.

01:49:37

Right, right, I mean, you can have a Roman Catholic that actually believes in the same gospel that the

01:49:45

Reformers stood for, because he either is oblivious to the fact that the Council of Trent condemned that gospel with an anathema, or he is, for some reason, remaining in the

01:49:57

Roman Catholic Church as a rebel of some kind to bring a modern -day Reformation to it, or whatever their reason is, or maybe they just don't want to cause a crisis and a division in their own marriage or family, but there are all kinds of situations.

01:50:13

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, I don't know if your guest is fully aware of the theology of the

01:50:24

Salvation Army and Quakers, but those groups do not baptize or have the

01:50:31

Eucharist, or communion, or Lord's Table, and would they have that prohibition towards those ordinances for the same reason as the hyper -dispensationalists, or are they unique reasons?

01:50:49

That's a really good question, and I'm not sure I really know the basis of the

01:50:55

Quakers and others for not doing that, and I guess I was unaware. I'm pretty sure

01:51:02

I have several Quaker friends who, I guess, maybe I just assumed that they had the same sacramental observations, but I don't know.

01:51:13

Oh, no, they don't. I happen to know that our listener is correct on that. Okay, well, then, yeah,

01:51:19

I mean, I wouldn't know how distinct that would be. I would be very, very, I mean,

01:51:24

I know enough about Quakers, I'd be very suspicious if they're implementing this distinctiveness of the

01:51:31

Apostle Paul and seven dispensations, stuff like that. And so that would surprise me, and that is really the basis of them not baptizing.

01:51:43

Yeah, yeah, in fact, the Quakers predate dispensationalism completely, so. Oh, yeah,

01:51:48

I knew that, yeah. So, I mean, quietism goes all the way back to the East, you know, even in the medieval period.

01:51:55

But anyway, yeah, I think it probably is distinctive if I had to answer.

01:52:01

And he brought in the Salvation Army to the equation, and I know that he is correct with them also.

01:52:07

They do not baptize or have the Lord's Supper. Do you know anything about the reasons? No, I really don't, no.

01:52:14

Okay, I'd like you to really, for about the next five minutes or so, really unburden your heart with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before they leave the program, so you can speak freely with as much information as you'd like to summarize our topic today.

01:52:33

Okay, well, I think it's important to at least try to understand what theologians are trying to do.

01:52:43

And hyperdispensationalists and dispensationalists come at theologians at different times. They're trying to find coherence, and they're doing what scientists sort of do with nature, like when the periodic table of elements was discovered.

01:53:01

They're expecting some kind of pattern and coherence. As it turns out, there is, and there is in a lot of different ways.

01:53:08

We find different mathematical formulas. God has made this world intelligible and knowable and in particular ways, and sometimes it's fairly clear and straightforward, and sometimes it's not.

01:53:24

That's what theologians sort of do when they look through redemptive history, and they try to say and ask and answer the question, well, what is the pattern here?

01:53:35

What is the movement? And how should we think of different epochs and periods?

01:53:40

How should we see this development? And hybrid dispensationalism is one of many, many attempts at trying to do that.

01:53:50

And where it falls short or where it errs is in drawing hard lines and probably in the wrong places as well.

01:54:02

And then really sort of forcing then the data, forcing the text and the narratives of scripture to fit that model.

01:54:15

And everybody's sort of guilty of that to some degree, but when you reach the point where you're really contrasting with the vast majority of other traditions of the

01:54:32

Christian faith, the burden of proof becomes much greater to bear. And on an exegetical level, on a theological level, this particular system just doesn't work out very well.

01:54:44

I do want to say that my book though is useful not only for those who are curious about this and different spinoffs of dispensationalism, but also for traditional dispensationalism.

01:54:57

And those who are maybe concerned or want to know more about this relationship between Israel and the church or a so -called literal interpretation of the

01:55:06

Bible and things like that. I think they'll find that very helpful as well.

01:55:14

So I think that sort of summarizes the thought and I've already shared some of my primary concerns with the practical implications of this particular theology.

01:55:23

I don't have to repeat that, but if we understand what the theologian's trying to do, that really helps us a bit navigate our conversations.

01:55:35

And we have to be careful about establishing artificial rules while we do that.

01:55:41

And that's what dispensation, it's really problematic. Every time the word Israel is mentioned, the

01:55:46

New Testament has to be interpreted literally. Every time it's a prophecy in the Old Testament that's referring to Israel, it can't apply to the church.

01:55:55

The Bible needs to be interpreted literally. What does that mean? That can mean four or five different things. So there's a lot of different ways of, different rules that are created to solve some of the theological problems.

01:56:08

But as I demonstrate in the book is that the rules are the problem and they're the ones that may create more problems than they actually solve when it comes right down to it.

01:56:21

So I think that's probably good to sum it up anyway. Well, I know that our listeners can purchase this book through Amazon.

01:56:31

Do you have any other website that you'd care to share? I mean, I know that your John Witherspoon College where you're on the faculty, that's johnwitherspooncollege .org,

01:56:42

johnwitherspooncollege .org. And Witherspoon is spelt W -I -T -H -E -R, spooncollege .org,

01:56:50

johnwitherspooncollege .org. There is no H in wither, as you might think there would be.

01:56:57

Just there's only an H in John, johnwitherspooncollege .org. But do you have any other website that you care to share where people might be able to pick up this book?

01:57:08

I do have a LinkedIn and an academia website, a page where people can download some of my articles.

01:57:19

And they could probably just find me by googling academia, Jamin Huebner, or something like that.

01:57:27

Otherwise, that's about it. I prefer email in terms of long distance communication instead of blogs, blog comments,

01:57:38

Twitter, Facebook, or any of that. So I'm a dinosaur and use electronic mail.

01:57:48

Yeah, and a lot of people might be totally surprised by this but John MacArthur and R .C.

01:57:55

Sproul do not use email at all. John MacArthur still writes his sermon notes on a yellow legal pad with a pen.

01:58:07

And when R .C. Sproul wrote his endorsement, his phenomenal endorsement for Iron Sharpens Iron a number of years ago, his assistant or receptionist had to scan his commendation for my show that he had typed on stationery and signed.

01:58:31

She had to scan that and email it to me because he does not use the internet.

01:58:39

So it's just amazing that these brilliant minds can function in the 21st century without those things that we would probably wither up and die now.

01:58:48

Yeah, right, yeah. But I wanna thank you so much, Dr. Huebner, for being on the program.

01:58:54

I'm looking forward to having you back on the show to discuss some other issue that you have written about or something that's burdening your heart.

01:59:02

I would love to perhaps even discuss presuppositionalism with you, which you have defended, if I'm not mistaken, in one of your books.

01:59:11

That happens to be a hot topic today and a lot of discussions and heated debates are swirling around over that.

01:59:20

But I look forward to having you back and I just wanna tell everybody, I hope you have a safe, joyful, and blessed, and God's glorifying weekend and Lord's Day.

01:59:31

And I look forward to hearing from you next week with your questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron. And I hope that you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.

01:59:47

God bless you all. Those of you who have been encouraging me with these wonderful emails about how much the show means to you are more of a blessing to me than you'll ever know.