What is Biblicism? Why is it dangerous? | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we are going to be explaining what Biblicism is.

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There's a lot of theological confusion and categories and systems and theologies that have been birthed out of Biblicism, and we're going to explain to you what it is, how to refrain from it, and how to spot it when you see it.

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Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

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Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. Today, your hosts are

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I am

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John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. It's good to be with you this morning.

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Justin, we had this conversation earlier. Often we think about what books we want to give away, and sometimes we think books are so good, we give them away twice.

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This might even be our third time. I don't know. Who knows? I think it's the second time. Who cares? It's free. If it's a good book, and you're getting it for free, who cares?

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That's right. We should probably have Rinehan on the podcast, too. Now that John's given it away, the air has been let out of the balloon.

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He's written more than one book. He has. That's true. So, given the subject matter of today's conversation, which we're going to set up here in just a moment, we're racking our brains as to a good resource to give to our selected winner.

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And since we all know you already have a Bible, that would be our first recommendation. There's only one must -read in history, and it is the

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Scripture of the Covenant. Sorry for that. So, the giveaway book this week is for the second time,

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I think, since we've started doing this. It's by our friend Samuel Rinehan. The book is entitled The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom.

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I think it will become obvious, perhaps, for the reasons why we're giving this away. It's a really good book on covenant theology, but he also does a lot of good stuff there on typology and just redemptive historical framework of the

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Bible and stuff that we find useful and helpful. And so, the winner this week, under the sovereignty of Almighty God and also via the mechanism of the

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Wheel of Names, is none other than Debbie Morrison. So, Debbie, we are excited to have you as an

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SR member, partnering with Theocast and a newer member. So, thank you, sister, for locking arms with us in that way.

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And we hope that this book is an encouragement to you. If you do not get a message from us about how to get your free book, then just shoot us an email or a message and we'll happily get that book to you.

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And if you're listening to this podcast and you're wondering how you could get a free copy of Sam Rinehan's excellent book, you can do the following.

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You can go to any of our social media handles today on the day the podcast releases, which would be a

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Wednesday. So, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and there will be instructions on how you could win the other free giveaway, which will be announced tomorrow, which is

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Thursday. So, hopefully that was clear enough. And I think we'll have a link in the show notes to Amazon or something like that or wherever one can buy

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Sam's book. Unfortunately, it's not on Amazon. I was going to say, I don't think it's on Amazon. I wish you would do a

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Kindle version, but it's only at Founders. Anyway, yeah. So, third -party site. So, we'll have a link to it,

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I think, in the show notes, though, if you wanted to go buy the book for yourself. And, I mean, given our pattern, we may be giving it away again in two months, so just stick around long enough.

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You never know. Maybe you'll get it that way. Or we could take some book recommendations. Hey, anybody that wants us to review a book, we may not talk about it on the podcast, but you can send it to us.

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Our address is at theocast .org. And, if you want to send us anything, you know, anything, like hair product for Justin, any of that good stuff.

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I mean, mine's buzzed off, dude. I don't really need any. If you want to send me some good beard oil,

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I'll take that. There you go. All righty. Well, today is a podcast.

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We've probably been needing to do it for a long time, and we reference it often. We do. We've even promised to do a podcast on it multiple times.

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Yeah, I know. But the real estate on podcast is very small, so we have to be choosy on what we pick.

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But today, we're doing something. And, bottom line, we do what we feel like doing. Yeah, I know. But what we get excited about, and what

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I think our church, my church, needs to hear. Biblicism. Man, biblicism is a word.

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I saw someone use it the other day. I'm a biblicist, and I was like, oh, someone should tell him not to say that.

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That's not, yeah, no, that's not. It's not a badge of honor. No, it's a negative thing.

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And we're going to explain to you why someone might think, well, why would Bible and ism be a bad thing? Typically, isms aren't good.

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Not always the case. I mean, Calvinism isn't necessarily, I think, bad. It's gotten a bad rap, which

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I just did an introduction to that on Ask Theocast and go check that out. But to stay focused, biblicism,

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Justin, give us a quick definition of what it is, and then we are going to work through about five or six examples of what happens when you don't use scripture properly or you're a biblicist.

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This is what it ends up producing. So what's a good definition, a simple definition for a listener of a biblicist?

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So let me just define it in a simple way and even just use pop -level accessible language to talk about this.

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You already alluded to it once when you said, like a person would describe themselves as a Bible person. Another way that you hear this commonly presented is people will say, well, no creed but Christ or no confession but the

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Bible, where people will say that the only thing that we need to use is scripture and any kind of framework outside of the

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Bible or any tools outside of the Bible are not useful. It's not faithful.

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It's not responsible to use such things to understand the scripture. And so you end up getting this kind of situation where people will say, if the text does not say it explicitly, then we cannot preach it.

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We cannot teach it. And the reverse is true. The text explicitly said it.

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Therefore, I'm going to preach it. And what ends up happening, and we're going to give illustrations of this, like you said, broad categories and the like.

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What ends up happening is you make the Bible sound very schizophrenic because you just quote chapter and verse in isolation and you don't interpret that verse within its broader context, even maybe within the book that it's situated in, let alone within the epic of redemptive history that it's situated in or let alone the entire

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Bible. And so you end up kind of introducing mystery and tension into the scripture where it does not exist.

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And you end up introducing things that sound contradictory and just really confusing your listener when the

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Bible rightly understood on its own terms with appropriate theological systems in place is not contradictory.

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It is not confusing. And there is going to be mystery, but we want to put the mystery in the right place.

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And so, Biblicism is dangerous on a number of levels because, as you're going to hear us talk about, there really are not hardly any key areas of doctrine that would not be compromised or confused by a

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Biblicism, Biblicistic. I don't even know the right way to put that in that context. If you're using

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Biblicism and you're a Biblicist, you're going to confuse most every major doctrinal categories.

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Can I give an example here? Yeah. A simple one would be Colossians 115. He is the firstborn of all creation.

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You could conclude that Jesus is born or even a created being if you do not allow all of Scripture to inform you about the nature of who

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Christ is. And I would even dare say the Trinity. So, many Biblicists in the past have become heretical.

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Arian would be a great example of this, where they isolate text and they don't allow what would say the analogy of faith or all of Scripture to speak into a theological position or a particular text.

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And a good example of this is that there are many people, even in the past, I'm sorry, even in recent days, who do not understand the nature of Jesus because they read individual texts and say, well, if that's what it says,

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I'm going to take it to be literally in the English without even using biblical language. That's exactly what it means in the

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English. That's exactly what it means. Therefore, that's what I believe. So, proof texting is an example of Biblicism, where you cite chapter and verse in isolation to prove a point.

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That's a common mistake that people make. And it's very interesting. Maybe a humorous way to put this, too, is when you get people really worked up about these things, and they will say, as I alluded to earlier, that I have no confession but the

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Bible and no creed but Christ, as they wave their study Bible in your face.

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And it's like, well, what do you think those study notes are other than an exercise in systematic theology and biblical theology and everything else that people seem allergic to?

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So, we did an episode a while back, John. I think something along the lines of, is your theological system any good?

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And that would be a useful episode, I think, for people to go back and listen to because we are going to contend today that the scriptures present to us certain frameworks and systems of theology that come up out of the text that we then can utilize to better understand the text.

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And a couple of those are going to be a redemptive historical framework and, for us as Reformed guys, a covenantal framework of the

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Bible. And those things are really helpful. And a biblicist is going to press really, really hard against both of those things because they're going to say, wow, that's a system that you're imposing down on the

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Bible and we shouldn't do that. You're being irresponsible in the ways that you're understanding and interpreting the scripture.

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And hopefully, we're going to demonstrate how, if anything, biblicism is the much more dangerous, irresponsible perspective today.

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Yeah. Biblicism, and I think, as you said, proof texting is really...

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I do a lot of internet research for things. Recently, I'm doing a series on Calvinism for Ask Theocast and just reading different arguments here and there.

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And the proof texting on either side, the Calvinist or the free will...

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I hate to say Arminian because they're... Well, brother, just to be very clear, there are people that could consider themselves to be

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Reformed who can be biblicists from time to time. Yes, very much so.

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And we want to be fair. Anybody can be a biblicist. Right. And I'm sure you and I have been at certain points not meaning to be.

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And so, anyway. So, I think really what we're arguing is that being able to identify biblicist tendencies or passages that we may have interpreted in the past where we have not allowed what we're going to argue for is context and tried and true theological categories.

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For instance, let me give you this one illustration. I think it's the most simple one that I've always used.

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When you read any text of scripture that has relation into God the

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Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, you do not read them if you are an evangelical who's been trained in a good church.

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You never read those without understanding that that is one in three. Another way of saying that is you're reading it by a theological system called

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Trinitarianism. And it's important that you do so because it helps you fully understand that this isn't one

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God working in opposition or in isolation to the other gods because we're not polytheists.

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We're monotheists, meaning poly meaning multiple, mono meaning one. We're monotheists who believe in a

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Trinitarian. I mean, it is a complicated system, but it's important to believe that because Jesus will say things like I and my

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Father are one, right? And these have to be read in a Trinitarian context.

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So, I have met biblicists who will allow a

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Trinitarian context to be set on the text, but that's as far as they will go.

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They won't say basically all other theological systems they will not allow because it's not biblical.

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But yet, you allow the Trinitarian system to guide you and it's not the only theological system in the

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Bible presented to us clearly in the text. We're going to argue for a couple others here in just a minute.

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So, Justin, I'm going to throw that back to you because I know you have a comment. Well, I'm ready to launch into some categories, man.

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Good. Let's do it. Okay. All right. So, one of the categories that's most important that we are convinced,

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John and I, and we're not alone amongst the Reformed in seeing this, that biblicism really, really just botches is the distinction between law and gospel.

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And there's a number of places we could go. I mean, I'm mindful of several examples in the life and ministry of Jesus where people will cite

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Christ in terms of chapter and verse in terms of what God requires out from the lips of Jesus himself and say, see, there it is.

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There's the road to salvation. That's the way of salvation, what Christ has just been saying.

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When Jesus has, in fact, been actually speaking a message of law, like, here is how you inherit the kingdom of God.

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Here is what you need to do and people will say, well, that's somehow a part and parcel of the good news.

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One of the greatest examples of this is a large section of scripture called the Sermon on the Mount where people will say things like the

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Sermon on the Mount is gospel to which we would say, okay, a much more careful reading of that text, a redemptive historical reading of that text and a reading of that text with an eye for law and gospel distinction is a sermon on the law not the gospel in terms of what

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God does require of us not just at the level of outward conformity but at the level of the heart and the mind and the desires and everything else.

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I think that becomes quite clear as Jesus begins to discuss the law pointedly in Matthew 5, 17 and following.

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Here is what you've heard but here is what it actually means for you. And he more or less damns everybody who hears him by saying you think you've done okay but you haven't.

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You haven't kept the law and this is what the Lord requires of you and in fact you need to be perfect like your

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Heavenly Father is perfect and so that confusion of law and gospel in the life and ministry of Jesus is a big deal.

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I want to reference a passage from one of the minor prophets in a second John because why not but you can maybe jump in while I'm turning.

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So the gospel is the way in which the Bible presents it is a message it's information but it also is a theological category meaning what is allowed to fit inside the word gospel it's a very closed tight -knit bubble like there's only so much that can be in there and if you add anything into it you are now changing what the gospel is and this is why

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Paul gets very upset and he even says hey if anybody comes to you and starts teaching you anything other than what you've already been taught adding to the gospel

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Paul is arguing for the clarity and he's saying this is encapsulated and cannot be changed it's been set forth in the moment you start altering it and you have to read every passage of the

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Bible with a clear understanding of gospel because if you don't then you will get as our good friend

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Pat Abendroth likes to call it I don't know where maybe he made it up but you get glossable you get the law and the gospel together so the gospel must be clarified and if it's not and you have this is because Justin there are times where people will be reading

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Sermon on the Mount is a great example of this I would also say The Rich Young Ruler which we used in the past as an example what must

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I do to inherit eternal life Jesus gives him what he needs to do if he wants to inherit it like if he wants to receive it by earning

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He does not give him the gospel If you would be perfect Right You need to do this

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That's not gospel That's law When you understand gospel and you have the category of gospel and you're holding that lens in your mind and then you read

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Jesus you go Oh well Jesus didn't give him gospel but what do we do Biblicists will say No Jesus answered the question therefore it's good news

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Jesus just told people what they need to do to inherit eternal life so we need to go about the business of doing it

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Right We have to forsake everything We need to sell all our possessions That's the conclusion of the Biblicists when law and gospel are confused

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Another great example from the Old Testament if I can really quickly before we move forward The prophet Micah Chapter 6

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So the context in the book of Micah for Micah 6 The Lord begins that chapter by indicting his people

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Every I mean they're guilty They stand condemned before him and then the prophet goes on in verse 6 and following of Micah 6 to write these things

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He's kind of hypothetically sort of speaking for the people here Right With what shall I come before the

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Lord and bow myself before God on high and since the sarcasm here like Lord you're extreme what do you require

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Shall I come before him with burnt offerings with calves a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousands of rivers of oil

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Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul and then

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Micah says He has told you O man what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your

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God Now what people do with that passage John is they they read that and they say see here it is the

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Lord is not satisfied with empty ritualistic religion He is not interested in people's sacrifices

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What he is interested in is the true religion of doing justice loving kindness and walking humbly before him

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And so now you need to be a true religion an old time religion kind of person who is characterized by the doing of justice the loving of kindness and the walking humbly before your

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God and the Lord will be pleased with you Again that is biblicism right that the prophet there is not giving people a message of gospel either

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He is telling folks a better understanding of what the Lord requires actually is this heart level reality it is not external conformity to a written code but it is a heart level reality of doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly before your

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God nobody has ever done it well enough that is the thing right and so this is where you go to that verse

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Micah 6 .8 is often posited as sort of kind of an old testament presentation of the gospel and I am like it is not it is not it is an old testament presentation of the law very similar to how

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Jesus presents it in the sermon on the mount and other places in his ministry you know learn what this means

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I desire mercy and not sacrifice etc right that is right yeah I believe with all my heart that God blesses righteousness amen dude he does not lie it reflects who he is it is just Paul tells us there is none righteous and our good works according to Jeremiah are compared to really disgusting you know filthy rags yeah and those those are important they are not opposition to each other so so you just beautifully segway to another category

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I mean you are just giving me the thumbs up John it is like you are a professional so the next category is massive so law and gospel is massive this one is at least as important and it is the confusion between faith and works right and so biblicalism is notorious for muddling this up to the high heavens how is it that we are justified how is it that we are finally saved even is it by faith or is it by our works and the classic text for me

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I could go to a number John but Romans 2 and kind of in the context Romans 2 to 3 is really really illustrative

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I think right and so Romans 2 begins Paul has already indicted all the brilliant Gentiles at the end of Romans 1 and then he begins in at the beginning of Romans 2 to talk to everyone

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Jew and Gentile alike because we all pass judgment on other people for not meeting our own standards and if if people can't they don't meet our standards and we pass judgment on them we need to realize that we don't meet our own standards and thereby we condemn ourselves with our judging and it's like if we haven't even met our own standards how much less so have we met

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God's standard right and so we misunderstand God's kindness not understanding that it's meant to lead men toward repentance and then

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Paul goes in Romans 2 6 and following and as the reformed theologian

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Robert Haldane once said you either leave Romans 2 6 and following a Protestant or a

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Romanist and I think he's right there's no there's no middle ground here in terms of how you can interpret it and let me say this kindly but sincerely there are a lot of people like if you pick up a

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Romans commentary there are a lot of guys who you know otherwise are pretty reasonable who absolutely lose their minds when it comes to Romans 2 6 through like 13 so let's just read a few of these verses and talk about what

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Biblicists do with it and then talk about how we should understand it even in the context of Romans Romans 2 6 this is true about God he will render to each one according to his works to those who by patience and well -doing seek for glory and honor and immortality he will give eternal life but for those who are self -seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness there will be wrath and fury there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil the

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Jew first and also the Greek but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good the Jew first and also the

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Greek for God shows no partiality for all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified okay so what you hear people say again otherwise pretty orthodox like sound teachers

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Protestants say they come to Romans 2 6 through 13 and they'll go okay we know that we are justified by faith but somehow somehow you can see it right here it's in the text they just start quoting chapter and verse somehow our works will factor into our final salvation because it says so right here that God will render to each one according to his works those who do good he's going to reward with eternal life those who do evil he's going to punish with wrath and fury and we would say okay no

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I mean that's not the way to interpret that passage somehow mysteriously our works factor into our final salvation because the question has to be asked in the broader context of Romans what is

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Paul doing he is arguing there's a flow of his thought that's going to culminate in Romans 3 in verse 21 he's arguing that everybody has judged themselves and judged others we don't meet our own standard let alone

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God's God is an impartial righteous judge who rewards those who do good and punishes those who do evil the problem though is that nobody's good right because he's going to go there in Romans 3 9 and following nobody is good there's not one righteous no not one right so we should be thinking like oh dear

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Lord we are all damned that's right how can anyone be saved which is why he says in verse 21 and following but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law although the law and prophets bear witness to it the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe right he's concluded that whole section of his argument in verses 19 and 20 where he says that the law condemns everyone

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Romans 3 19 in verse 20 for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight because the law only crushes people but yet we go in a biblicism kind of way we go to Romans 2 6 and we go to Romans 2 13 and we quote it and say ah but guys we've got to work for this we've got to do something even though we're saved by faith somehow our works factor in and that's just an irresponsible presentation and what does it do

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John it confuses the nature of the gospel itself that's right and robs the saints of assurance if you're new to theocast we have a free ebook available for you called faith versus faithfulness a primer on rest and if you struggled with legalism a lack of assurance or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a reformed confessional perspective you can get your free copy at theocast .org

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slash primer yeah I this is um another way of saying this understanding the nature of man and understanding the gospel is two categories we have to hold in both hands as we read every text so we know from scripture that we are in Adam meaning that we have received the curse of Adam which is that our spiritual nature the confessional capacity to love and obey and please

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God to trust in him has been cursed unto death Paul describes it as being dead because we've had to go from death to life obviously we are not physically dead he is speaking about the cursed nature that we have so you cannot demand a cursed dead nature to do that which it has no capacity to do which is obey

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God this is um even in James the classic quote right faith that works is dead we really needle down into that and if I am looking at someone who says to me

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I'm a Christian and yet they don't see the necessity of producing good fruit you know in keeping with repentance and obedience

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I don't need to do that I just need to say a prayer and I'm good well

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I would agree that they are confused and James is even getting it out in the context saying okay look you are saying you are a follower of Jesus but the way that you are acting is contrary to that and if you are unwilling to repent of that then the faith you were claiming is a dead faith you can't at that moment you don't call someone to do something they can't do because at that moment you go okay you don't understand the gospel this isn't a works issue this is a gospel issue because those who have saving faith are going to obey it's a gospel issue and it's a union with Christ issue it's a regeneration issue right like if you have been born again and if you are not just giving some kind of mental assent to some truth about Jesus but you are trusting him if you're hoping in him that only occurs via the supernatural work of the

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Holy Spirit and you have now been united to Christ and you will bear fruit that's what the scriptures say but yeah to confuse that to invert that to proof text it and say man you know faith without works is dead and you know all these kinds of things like show me your faith by your works to then conclude well we need to go about telling people to do good work so that they know they're saved wrong that's not the conclusion that we draw we go about preaching

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Christ we tell people to trust Christ and through their union with him fruit will be produced you can't invert that relationship but biblicism confuses that relationship to no end and I will say well

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I'll just reference this here for two reasons one we already have a podcast on it two we have a podcast coming one repentance biblicism we did really a needle down focused in on that a couple weeks ago if I'm gonna go back and listen to what is repentance we really kind of unfold that from a what biblicism is and I would also say lordship salvation falls into this where a lot of the arguments that you will see again in the next coming weeks we're going to give you some more examples on this but I'll just say this now

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I think lordship salvation is built upon a biblicism platform it completely is in that there's a collapsing of law and gospel there's a confusion of faith and works and faithfulness that's right right repentance and there's really a different definition of faith that is given in the lordship camp where obedience and repentance and like a sincere desire to obey and all those kinds of things are woven into the definition of faith right and that is something that historically

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Protestants have been very careful to not do and we'll talk about that you know in some subsequent episodes but as one example that's kind of like a precursor to that is the the that when you as a reformed and even

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Calvinist when you understand the depravity of man and the sovereign election of God and as it relates to our salvation the the biblicism of lordship doesn't seem to work

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I would I would agree with the fact that when Jesus saves me and brings me to new life

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I am now owned by him and I am gladly thankful that he is my lord but I don't have the capacity to make that change within myself or determine that that is handed to me it's not something that is given to me as if there's something

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I must do in order to be a child well and the bottom line too is that when you have been united to Christ by faith you now

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Roman 617 have become obedient from the heart right you actually do desire to obey

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God but the desire to obey is not a piece of faith itself right the the new birth that is worked by God produces faith and then the fruits of regeneration and faith are a desire to obey amongst a whole host of other things yeah but you can't confuse that and we're gonna we're gonna talk more about that in coming weeks and I'm excited for those conversations so if you're interested in hearing those stay tuned coming your way well you can go back and listen to one on repentance totally

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I think in two weeks you'll hear the one on yeah and so now maybe last big category or maybe one of the last couple big categories in the regular portion of the podcast is also a reference back to an episode we did

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I think it would have been the one released last week potentially on typology and types and shadows and all those kinds of things like is the whole

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Bible really about Jesus right you know and so just to briefly pick back up on this and to help explain how biblicism is unhelpful here we talk regularly about how the whole

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Bible really is about Christ that it's about the plan of redemption that God has had since before the foundation of the world that centers on Christ that's accomplished through him that's in then applied to us by the work of the

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Holy Spirit all to the praise of God's glorious grace and so we interpret every passage of scripture in light of that main message in light of that main point and we realize that the way that God has revealed his plan of redemption by farther steps through history and in the pages of scripture there are all of these things that serve as types of something greater to come their shadows and the substance is going to come there are pointers to things that are going to come later that are ultimate that will fulfill them and so when we preach anything in the

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Old Testament for example I could think of a number of examples whether this the obvious ones are like the

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Passover when we preach the Exodus the parting of the Red Sea when we preach the day of atonement or whatever it may be we're talking about those in light of Christ and what he would come to do he's the

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Passover lamb he is you know the one who has atoned for our sin and removed it from us he is going to deliver us not out of bondage to Egypt but from bondage to sin and death right and Satan but we should we would argue be preaching the entire

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Old Testament this way and sometimes people get really worked up when we preach a very in a very

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Christo centric a Christ centered way from the Old Testament a Biblicist will say brother you are not giving appropriate attention to the original author's intent because did

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Moses fully understand you know everything that you're saying about Jesus or did David fully understand everything that you're saying about Jesus from the

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Psalms or did Micah understand or fill in the blank did this Old Testament prophet understand everything that you're saying about Christ and so a

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Biblicist will rail against a Christ centered sermon sometimes from the Old Testament because we are not doing justice to the original author's intention to which

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I just I want to say this humbly but I would stake my ministry on this John is it legitimate for example to preach baptism from Noah and the ark yes

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I mean Peter makes that connection for us in first Peter 3 but what should we preach when we preach a sermon on the ark and the flood well we should preach salvation we should preach baptism and we should preach

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Christ as the emphasis of that passage what should we preach when it's the Passover or the

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Day of Atonement we should preach Jesus what about the temple bro we were having this conversation before we hit record so there is an obsession in some circles with the temple and the rebuilding of the temple and all these kinds of things and when we see the temple being built in the

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Old Testament and God is having a house built for him where he is going to dwell with his people when we see the tabernacle even before that set up in the camp of Israel we should be preaching

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Jesus from those passages why because Jesus shows up on the scene and says himself that he is the fulfillment of the temple that's right and so he is

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God's presence on earth and then as he ascends and sends his Holy Spirit the church is now the fulfillment of the temple and the spirit of God is now the temple of God himself dwells in the church and with his people and the like and then in the new heavens and the new earth there will be no temple because God will be there right and the lamb will dwell among us and there is no need for a temple anymore this is how we should preach the temple and there are going to be people who are going to be like whoa whoa whoa whoa should you preach the temple that way in the

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Old Testament and I am going to be like well yes if we are a Christian we should if we are

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Christians all of Scripture is Christian Scripture right it's like if and this is what we are this is where I think I get really upset John with Biblicism maybe as much as any place

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Romans 2 and 3 gets me worked up but this stuff really really works me up because people almost call into question whether we should preach

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Christ from the Old Testament from these things that prefigure him and point to him as though it's well okay maybe you should but that shouldn't be the emphasis of your sermon and I'm like my goodness guys the last time

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I checked we are Christians and we preach Christian sermons do we not you know and so yeah it's like we want to read

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Jesus Exodus or Micah or Esther as Christians for crying out loud that's right you know anyway go ahead well and I think there's a fear of allegorizing there is

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I remember when I was in Bible college and even in seminary it's like oh you don't want to fall into that trap where we're allegorizing everything in the text and we're putting things in the text that isn't there and so that's a legitimate argument that you can't force into the text things that aren't there which

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I would argue is if you've got five points of how to be faithful like David because of the five tell me where that's in the text yeah not in the text no it's not in the text at all you know let me read you something real quick from Romans 15

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I think will make your point Justin Paul says this we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up for Christ did not please himself but it is written the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me and then

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Paul gives us the motivation and interesting how he gives us motivation pay attention to this in verse 4 for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope okay so he's referencing

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Christ he's referencing our need to bear with the weak and our motivation is the

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Old Testament leads us to hope there is no way you can conclude that Paul isn't meaning hope in Christ because he just got done arguing for it in chapter 14 well

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I would say all of Romans but the point of it is that anytime you see these

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New Testament writers referencing the Old Testament they are referencing it as these are designed for endurance and encouragement because the

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Old Testament gives us hope because what is the Old Testament about it's about Jesus I mean that's just one more example of a text of interpreting the

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Old Testament for us I know we said this last week I'm going to say it again I mean whenever we do what we're describing where we interpret and read and preach the

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Old Testament in this Christ centered way we're doing what Jesus told us to do and we're doing what the Apostles did full stop so yeah

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I understand there's a danger of allegorizing everything and that is not at all what we are advocating for all we're advocating for is to read the

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Old Testament the way the Apostles read and understood it because there are countless examples

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John that we could give from Paul from Peter from the writer of the Hebrews from John where it's obvious that they see things in the

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Old Testament that if they were in a hermeneutic class in most modern day seminaries they would get a failing grade for saying what they're saying because it's like oh well what about the original author's intent you know did the psalmist really mean in Psalm 68 were they really talking about Jesus' ascension and the giving of gifts

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Paul like you say in Ephesians 4 you know or whatever and it's like or the rock from 1 Corinthians 10 -4 like referencing

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Exodus 17 I mean all of these things are just example after example after example after example of how the

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Apostles read the Old Testament the writer of the Hebrews I mean what's the sacrificial system about what's the priesthood about it's about Christ it all pointed to him right and why would we go back to something that's been fulfilled in the

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Lord Jesus Abraham what was Abraham about ultimately he was he was justified by faith as a pattern for everyone who would ever believe the promises of God realized in Messiah and we would be saved the same way you know and this is how we should read all of these things you know

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Jesus himself in John 3 the snake that's lifted up on a pole in Numbers 21 it's about him and how he would be raised up you know and when we look to him and what he's done we're saved you know well yeah we could go on and on and on but we are running out of time we did have one left we're going to leave it for the other podcast we're about to do we're going to talk a little bit about eschatology and biblicalism everybody's favorite topic hmm yeah so for those of you that are new and listening we have a ministry called

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Semper Firmanda always reforming and we started this as a way to connect with our listeners but also

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I think go to a deeper level there are many who love what we're saying on Theocast but have questions and really kind of want to go to that next level of conversation and so Justin and I kind of step into a different role in that way where we interact with our listeners a little bit more and we kind of take this conversation to a little bit deeper level and so you can join us called

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Semper Firmanda and it's two things one it's a podcast that we do but two it's also a community it's an online community and a believe it or not local community and by now our app is out and you can go and sign up for Semper Firmanda get our private podcast feed and also join a group you download our app and see what groups are available you can join an online discussion group or you do it over Zoom or you can do it locally in your town those are growing

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I think we're over 20 plus so far people are getting signed up to start their own so if you want to learn more about that you can go to theocast .org